Charles Men Part I: War and Glory

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This
series
of Scandinavian Classics
is
published
in the
by The American-Scandinavian Foundation
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monuments of
the
North
will help
Americans
to a
better understanding of Scandinavians,

to stimulate their
and thus serve
sympathetic cooperation to good ends
SCANDINAVIAN CLASSICS
VOLUME XV
THE CHARLES MEN
BY
VERNER VON HEIDENSTAM PART I
THIS
VOLUME
IS
ENDOWED BY
S.
MR. CHARLES
PETERSON
OF CHICAGO
THE CHARLES MEN

BY
VERNER VON HEIDENSTAM

TRANSLATED FROM THE SWEDISH BY CHARLES WHARTON STORK WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY FREDRIK BOOK
PART
NEW YORK
THE AMERICAN-SCANDINAVIAN FOUNDATION LONDON HUMPHREY MILFORD
:
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

1920
Copyright, jg20, by The ijimerican-Scandinavian Foundation
T>. "B.
Updi{e
The zMerrymount Tress
"Boston
U. S. zA.
TO THE MEMORY OF THOSE HEROES
WHO WITH HONESTY
OF PURPOSE
HAVE BATTLED GALLANTLY

IN LOST CAUSES
AND GONE DOWN SMILING

BEFORE
MANY
SPEARS
THIS VOLUME
IS
REVERENTLY DEDICATED BY THE TRANSLATOR
CONTENTS
"Part I
PAGE
Introduction
ix
The Green Corridor
A Sermon
The
Successor
to
24
the
Throne
33 57
73
Midsummer Sport
Gunnel
the Stewardess
French Mons
79
the
The dueen of
Marauders
102 123
Mazeppa and His Ambassador

Fifty Tears Later
136
162
1
The
Fortified
House
Clean White Shirt
84
Poltava
1 90
5Mo/^
y// /A<?
My
Children!
228 233
Council Table
M^ Church Square
l^l
14^1
Captured

Author of '"The Charles Men''
I
more than FOR of and

full
five years the
world has been

still
strife
the clash of weapons, and
the last shot has not been fired or the last sword
thrust into
its
sheath.
Humanity
finds itself in a
situation recalling that in
which Lucius Cary, Vis-
count Falkland, found himself during the English
Revolution and Civil War; when Clarendon relates

that he, "sitting
among
his friends, often, after a

a shrill
deep silence and frequent sighs, would, with
and sad accent, ingeminate the word Peace^ Peace
and would passionately profess that the very agony

of the war, and the view of the calamities and desolation the
kingdom did and must endure, took

time that there
his
sleep from him, and

It is at this
would shortly break his heart." is brought before the American public one of the most distinguished works of modern Swedish literature; a work devoted to the king who lived his whole life in the field and died in a trench, and who even in the days of Voltaire stood as the genius of war, the symbol of its desolating and misfortune-bringing might; a work that deals only with campaigns and battles, with slaughter and pillage, the wailing of the
INTRODUCTION
wounded, and the long, hopeless agony of the capwith all that humanity would fain forget, tives and cannot forget. The moment might seem to be ill chosen; more than one, perhaps, may feel himself minded as Aeneas when, having barely escaped from the burning of Troy, the swords of the Greeks, and the terrors of shipwreck, Queen Dido asks him to relate the story of his life, and he an-
swers with a shudder: Infandum^ Regina^ jubes renovare dolorem.
But
as surely as
it is
the province of fiction to
give us what
us forget
we do not have in fact, and to make what hurts and oppresses us, so surely
have the mission of helping us to un-
does
it
also
derstand what we have gone through, of looking with clearer and purer eyes on the struggles and
experiences of
ity,
life.
Fiction frees from external real-
not only by taking us away to the lands of fan-
tasy
and the world of beautiful
visions, but by anisignifi-
mating the dead matter of events, by giving

confusing spectacle sub specie aeternitatis.
point of view, T^he Charles
cance and substance to things, by showing us the
From
this
Men
is
a timely
work.
The
test
fall
of the Swedish empire, the desperate conright, the
of an inflexible ruler for what he believed to be
true
and
boundless suffering of an
ill-
fated people, the ravages of
hunger which they en-

their inevitable ruin
xi
dured, their growing despair and infinite fortitude,
and eternal glory and compelling
such
as
is
the
picture that appears before us in simple, majestic

lines; a tragedy clear
one of the
Greeks',
composed by the very
history of the world,
and
fitted to purify
our hearts through terror and
pity, as Aristotle taught.
He who
ponders the na-
ture of war
and the philosophy of history may win

and
instruction from the epic which Swedish history
Swedish imagination together have formed about

Charles
XII and
his
men.
It
was no
superficial ro-
mance of war, no rancorous and

saw before
his eyes the
hypocritical chau-
vinism, that inspired Verner von Heidenstam.
He
misery and degradation of

it
war;nopacifistic Barbusse has painted

colors than he.
in
grimmer
He
saw the problematic side of his
hero; the rigid, petrified insensibility that misfor-
tunes and spiritual torments wrought in the breast
of the king.
the
And yet he felt deeply the moral beauty,

these
human magnanimity, which
men
of battle
displayed, and which they gave to posterity as a

noble, strengthening essence, extracted from with-
ered herbs and crushed reeds, a medicina mentis for
every one
who must needs
fight,
endure, be van-
quished and overpowered.
The highest praise one can give to The Charles Men is that this work, which was composed in deep-
xii
INTRODUCTION
and quality during
est peace, has not lost its color
World War. Verner von Heidenstam has come forward among the pacifists side by side with Rothe
main Rolland; but he does not belong

ficial,
to the super-
blind zealots for peace of
whom
Paul Elmer
essay,
More
speaks in his profound and
humane
The Philosophy of IVar.
He belongs
with those
who
have always seen mankind
in all its contradictory
profusion and have laid to heart what the great
American critic writes " Nor is war in itself wholly bestial. There has grown up amongst us of recent years a literature devoted to the propaganda of peace, both in the form of fiction and of exhorta:
tion,
which throws into vivid
relief all the horrors
incidental to the battlefield,

nies the
and
slurs over
and dea part

is
honor and exaltation that are also

life.
of the soldier's
as false
nist.
That
literature, I say boldly,
and mischievous
is
as its
Nietzschean antagoin
There
all
an element of heroism
war which,
his life
through
its
the waste and evil, has not been without

it
salutary effect. Is
because he has passed
in a career entirely cruel
and
vile that the typical

is
soldier, in his later years
of retirement,
man
so
true and honorable, often so gentle? Shall we, in
our imagination of peace, forget

felt in
all
that
we have
the reading of history, and slander our in-
stincts?"

True J honorable, gentle
Charles men:
xiii
that
is
the stamp of the
the prisoners in Siberia, as they are
gathered around the Bible in their bitter poverty;
and those that have returned to their native land, as they set the plough in the earth to build a new
Sweden on the
It is not,
ruins of the old.

affair
however, the
of the Swedish
critic
to subjoin the reflections to

invites,
which The Charles

in
Men
the
but to
tell
of the author
clear
who wrought
it.
work, and to make
what we admire
ri
Verner von Heidenstam
is
by birth an aristocrat;
he was born on the sixth of July, 1859, at the manor house of Olshammar in Narke. As a boy he was
thought to have lung trouble, and for that reason

did not follow the usual course of education; instead he was sent to the milder climate of southern
Europe. His youth received, therefore,
a different
impress from that of most Swedish authors of the
same age. The horizon of the Mediterranean surrounded it. He lived in Italy and visited Greece, Egypt, Palestine, and Asia Minor; while for nearly eight years he was away from Sweden. The attraction toward the Orient was very strong in his na-
ture; one has the impression that

all
it
was found
in
of
his family,
because at the end of the seven-
xiv
INTRODUCTION
Minister at Constantinople, and was actively in-
teenth century one of his ancestors was the Swedish
terested in
to Persia,
Turkish
and died
civilization; another travelled

in
1878
as charge d'affaires in
still
Athens, and branches of the stock are

ing in Cyprus and Smyrna.
to
flourish-
Heidenstam wanted
in fact a pupil at the
it
become
a painter,
and was
studio of Gerome in Paris. But

clear to
gradually became
a poet; in
his
him
that he was
above
in
all
1887
debut
he returned to
Sweden, and
1888 made
with the collection, Pilgrimage and IVander-Tears.
In this we have the verse of a painter; strongly

colorful, plastic, racy, vivid. In the bold,
careless,
sometimes
all is
form there
is
nothing academic;
seen
and felt and experienced, the observation is sharp and the imagination lively. The young poet-artist reproduces the Italian carnival, the French life of
the streets, impressions of Attic landscapes
stories
;
he
tells
jures
from the Thousand and One Nights^ and conup before us the bazaars of Damascus. He
its
loves the ancient world:
clear beauty,
its
fresh
joy of
life;
he showers ridicule and scorn upon the
ugly, sad, nervous, bustling present. In the carefree indolence
of the East he sees the

a reckless epicurean,
last reflection
of the old happy innocence, and for that reason he

loves
it.
He
is
who
:
lets
the
Egyptian
priests of
Hator proclaim

Wine^
Senile
xv
the kiss
women and men

yet
of a girl^ and the daring jest that will startle to the gods above these are blameless.
amid all the gay hedonism in Pilgrimage and Wander-Tears is a cycle of short poems,
Thoughts in Loneliness^
filled
And
with brooding, melan-
choly, and sombre longing.
In the year 1888 Heidenstam brought out a
volume of travel
Blocksberg;
in
descriptions.
in the
From Col di Tenda
to
and
novel Endymion^ published
1889, he displayed a picture of the East which

to death in the
is stifled
embrace of the West. In
couple of brochures. Renascence (îSSg) and Pepita's

fVedding[\Sô), the latter a rollicking yV d'esprit
executed
historian,
in
collaboration with the poet and literary
Oscar Levertin, he attacked the prevalent
naturalism, the gray-weather

tion.
mood
in life
and
fic-
With
the right of a strong, youthful temperaart that
ment he craved an
scientific theories
would move freely and boldly, unfettered by social doctrines and pseudoof the day; he wished to give
back their dues to the imagination, to the love of

beauty, and insisted
artist.
upon the sovereignty of the These writings took on a decisive meaning

development of Swedish
1
in the
literature:
during
the decade of
880 Sweden had been dominated by
the "literature of indignation," literature with a
xvi
INTRODUCTION
purpose, by the naturalism of the positivists, and
by methodized prose. Heidenstam turned the current: the decade of 1890 became lyrical and imaginative, the decade of free
and sovereign poetry. Gustaf Froding, Selma Lagerlof, Per Halstrom, and Erik Axel Karlfeldt carried out the program that Heidenstam and Levertin had laid down.
But the joy of life and enthusiasm for beauty, which the young Heidenstam had proclaimed, soon gave place in himself to deeper moods. Even the great fantastic epic, Hans Alienus^ which he completed in 1892, is a monument on the grave of his care-free and indolent youth. He discovered that beauty cannot satisfy the hunger of the soul; his
hero, a pilgrim in the storied lands of the East,
a brooding Faust,
is
who even
in the pleasure-garhis painful
dens of Sardanapalus cannot cease from

search after the meaning of
life.
He is
driven back
by
far
his
yearning to the snowy country of his fathers,

in the
up
Swedish forest of Tiveden.

Poems, which Heidenstam
in
In the
collection,
brought out
1895, ^^^ horizon of the Mediter-
ranean has disappeared.
The soughing fir-trees
tell
him
stories
different
from those he listened
to
among dancers and camel-drivers. The love he now sings is that which a man's own effort has brought
to birth,
and which "flings arms of flame around

heaven and earth."
his glance with
xvii
The meagre
it is
land rises before
new beauty:
the stretch of earth
which
his fathers cleared with toil
and
self-denial.
inti-
No
one has praised home more fervently and
mately than the pilgrim and traveller, the restless
wanderer:
A home!
By walls
*Tis
like
a fortress
securely shielded^
Our
worlds our own^ the one thing

in this -world
We
have huilded.
expression in
in
Heidenstam's nationalism, which had its theoretical many of the essays which he collected
1899 under the title 'Thoughts and Sketches^ is above all born of a deep filial affection for the past. Annals, monuments, ruins, and portraits become
living realities to the
wherever he goes,
lets
man of powerful imagination; the present moment unfolds and

overshadowing our
us look into the ancient records; the dead surlike gigantic spirits,
round us
which
thoughts. But despite this entering into the past,

is
so characteristic of
ditional bent has never
Heidenstam, his trabecome an inflexible condemocratic current
servatism.
There
all
is
is
a strong
throughout
of his markedly aristocratic nature.

included Singers in the
Steeple^
Among
Poems
where he celebrates the idea of brotherhood, and makes the classes privileged as to power and gold
xviii
INTRODUCTION
their treasures into a cup,
pour
on which
is
in-
scribed:
Not joy to the rich^ to the poor man Our toil and our pleasure alike we
care;
share.
The
(i
collection of
poems
that gives the strongest
expression to his passion for his country,
A People
902), contains the lyric Fellow-Citizens^ where he
takes up the cause of universal suffrage and thoroughgoing democracy. 'The Charles Men, which appeared in 1897-98, is
Heidenstam's chief work

ers
it is
in prose; to
Swedish readartistic
evident that only verse allows his
greatness to
come
to
its full
right.
series
The Charles Men

of historical de-
forms the introduction to a
scriptions: St. Birgittas Pilgrimage (1901),
which
of
sets before us the greatest religious personality
Sweden
in the
Middle Ages; Folke
Filbyter (1905)
and The Legacy of Bjalbo (1907), which render the ancient and mediaeval times in pictures composed around the Folkung family; The Swedes and their
Chieftains (1908-10), which
makes
all
the Swedish
is
annals pass by in review.
The
St.
last-named work
written in the form of a reader for Swedish schools.
In the collections of tales,

(1900), and the
George and the Dragon

Forest Murmurs
volume of
sagas and stories which

txtXe,
he collected in 1904 under the

are to be found
xix
sonal creations.
some of his most original and perHis last book is New Poems (i 9 1 5),
lyrics
where the simple and compact form of the

expresses the noble, quiet
humanism of the ripened

in
and matured man.

After his
homecoming
on
1
1887, Heidenstam set-
tled for a time
his ancestral estate
of Olsham-
mar, but
in
890
shifted to
Djursholm near Stockin the
holm, and
in
1897 participated
founding of
the great national-liberal newspaper, the Svenska
Dagblady whose program was defence and reform.

In 1900 he settled at
Naddo
(near Vadstena),onthe
shore of Lake Wettern, which he loved so deeply
and on whose strand was situated the home of
his
childhood. In 191 7 he departed thence, after his

third marriage, like both of those preceding, had
been dissolved by divorce, and in 191 9 he betook himself afresh to foreign travel. In 1910 he was
made an honorary Doctor of Philosophy by
the
University of Stockholm; in 1912 he became a
member of
the Swedish
Academy, and
in
916
re-
ceived the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Ill
The Charles
technic has
Men
all
is
poem
in prose.
Heidenstam's
clear
the freedom, abandon, even caprice
that belongs to verse.
There
is
no steady and
XX
INTRODUCTION
inessential,
stream of narrative in his work; he leaps over what

is
and
his
imagination concentrates
it-
self
on the scene, the

as significant.
figure, the detail that strikes

is
him
This technic
in
accord with the
historical
atmosphere. Uniform realism, methodical
description,
place in a
is
modern novel;
and painstaking motivation may be in if, on the other hand, it

of conjuring up visions from the past,
his figures
a question
the poet
daylight
must not bring
out into the
full
il-
that can only lead to destroying the

in the sunshine.
lusion, as
when masks go about
We
this
must have
a broad river of darkness,
which con-
tains all the
mystery of the past, and against

flashes of that life
black background the figures and scenes
mer
mise.
forth
symbolic
may glimwhose
depth and scope one cannot define, but only sur-
That Heidenstam dreamed at one time of becoming a painter, to this every page of T'he Charles
Men
bears witness.
What
mighty composition
is
the picture of Stockholm's castle in flames which

closes the first narrative,
The Green Corridor! Hei-
denstam has rendered the picturesque element of Charles XII's history with the most finished art:
not only the gloomv scenes in black, gray, and
white from the wintry land in the North, but also
the variegated and highly colored representations

of the wanderings
rauders
in the war.
xxi
The Queen
of the
Ma-
among
the Cossacks by the Beresina; the
march of Mazeppa, surrounded by drunken Zaporogeans; the flaxen-haired Stupid Swede in the serail of the sultana, among gilded parrot-cages and one could not draw a more masblack cypresses
terly
contrast between the simple poverty of the
Charles folk and the exoticism of the Orient.
The
artist reveals
himself everywhere, but so,
too, does the aristocrat.
The
patriarchal idyl of the
country manor
is
immortalized in the airy Midsumspirit
mer Sport. The gay, care-free

nobility
of adventure that
the Swedish
played through the centuries

is
among
incarnate in the indomitable Grothusen
who
is
always in debt; and
in front
of
his
regiment to
when Rika Fuchs rides make an estimate of his

spirit has
property, every Swede must recognize the national

sense of humor.
The joking
undergone
cell
an intimate union with a proud and taciturn sense
of duty.
It
is
only in the solitude of the prison
that Gustaf Celsing gives

that burns
words
to the
deep grief
among
these officers, humiliated, in-
sulted, trampled to earth in the service of their be-
loved master:
In alien places
His men of proud

As beggars must
races
crouch.
xxii
INTRODUCTION
dispersed in slavery, they preserve their
Even when
sense of order and responsibihty; they keep up their

muster-rolls and accounts, they are not a horde but
a people, a state {The General of Papers).
Of the
glittering conqueror,
" King Charles, the

tri-
youthful hero," illuminated by the sunshine of
umph and
dred years
success,
after,
whom Tegner celebrated a hun-
Only
his
is
for a brief second
Heidenstam has not much to tell. may we catch a glimpse of

It
boyish ardor as he steps ashore at Zeeland.
in the
time of adversity and defeat that he begins
to interest
self to
Heidenstam.
When
falls
the king feels him-
be alone, abandoned by
God and man,
the
transfiguration of poetry
a wholly tragic figure.
over his form.
He is
:
pounded
tragic
his
view of
The author himself has Charles XII in an essay

a duel
pro"
problem comprises
between
conflictit
ing claims of right which appear so strong that
beyond human justice them entirely. Not only is

lies
to reject either
it
one of
impossible to cut the
blood-red thread that the logic of misfortune spins
through the tragedy, but even

scrutiny.
in respect to the final
moral judgment we cannot get further than a dim
This awakens sympathy,
if
not a
full
;
and
it
devoted admiration for the tragic hero

possible solution, however impossible
but
arouses, too, inquisitive reflection, the search for a

it
may
be to

find.
xxiii
problem is therefore insoluble to mankind, andfrom that fact, first and last, comes the
tragic
The
general confusion in contemplating Charles XII,

the continual dissension between our admiration on one side and our moral demands on the other. If a solution were ever possible, it would mean that the king was not really tragic; but
we need have
no
if
fear.
What is tragic in
strife
the deepest classical sense,
not the
between the claims of personal and

fill
of universal justice that
his life as
we behold
it?
He
finds himself treacherously attacked
snared.
that he
He
cannot escape from the single
and enthought
his hands.
must get back what force is tearing out of The prudent and the exhausted cry out
make peace, but he cannot overlook the at the first opportunity the enemy will again fall upon him, if he does not first strike them to earth for a long period. It is not he that has made
for
him
to
thought that
the Swedish empire, but
if it collapses, it is
he that
must bear the shame; and the more his honorweakens, the more ambition becomes his all-engulfing passion. In this manner he assumes in his person all of his people's demands for justice, and tragedy
spreads
its
wings over millions."

is,
The
hero of this tragedy
accordingly, not only
the king, but the Swedish people as well. In Poltava
Lewenhaupt says " The wreath he twined

:
for
him-
xxiv self slid
INTRODUCTION
down upon
:
his subjects instead."
And
in
A Hero's Funer a/ Brother George answers the slanderers and revilers

so as to see that
sire
it
" Are not your eyes opened yet

will
was our own secret

a rebellious
is
and de-
which he preserved against our own indecision,

banner against
like a
guard?"
"The Charles
Men,
fall
therefore,
not only a
monu-
ment over the

a
of the Swedish empire, but also

its
hymn on
the beauty in
destruction, the hopeto duty, the poetry
less
magnanimity of obedience
life.
of sacrifice. It expresses Heidenstam's deeply tragic
philosophy of
tain
is
The
highest that a
man
can at-
to fall with honor,
and such
is
the fate of the
Happiness is common and superficial; sufferholy and great. None of the stories in The Charles Men is more deeply characteristic of Heidenstam than The Stubest.
ing
is
pid Swede.
serail,
The parks and
pavilions of the Turkish
with their roses and jewels, symbolize the
oriental doctrine of pleasure
and beauty that he
cel-
moment when the awkward and joyless Swedish thrall stands among the glittering, soulless dancing-girls, who know
ebrated in his youth. But at the
nothing more of earth than that
it
is
lovely,
and
dream of nothing else than of a kiosk with red damask hangings and perfumed fountains, her form suddenly takes on an exaltation that none of the

others possesses; and
xxv
when she
fulfil
seizes the basket
with the snake
in
order to
her duty,
it is
she
who
is
the most beautiful. Beauty of self-sacrifice,
of misfortune, of the soul, causes her to shine more

brightly than even the odalisque
light.
Evening
Star-
Anatole France has related a legend of the juggler of the
Virgin,
Madonna who worshipped and won her favor by the naive

his tricks in her
is
the
Holy
piety with
which he performed
Stupid Swede
honor. The
a legend of that soul-temper
which
transforms ugliness to grace and misfortune to har-
mony. That soul-temper

ing words of The Charles
is
is
glorified in the concluda benediction

in their fall
Men^ where
called
down upon
the people
who
from greatness caused

before the world.
their poverty to be glorified
Fredrik Book
Lufid, Sweden,
December, 1919
The
to
translator wishes to express his gratitude

for his col-
Mr. O. A. Linder of Chicago

to
lation of the English text with the original,
and
Mr. Edwin Bjorkman of

in
New York
passages.
for assistance
certain
difficult
THE CHARLES MEN

BY
THE CHARLES MEN

The Green Corridor
the castle
attic,
IN brandy and
where the
fire-chief sold
ale, a tall,
narrow-shouldered cus-
down the stairs and thrown after him, so that it his empty pewter pot rolled between his shoes. His worsted stockings were mended and dirty. He had tied his neck-cloth over his mouth and unshaven cheeks, and he continued to stand with his hands in his coat-tail
tomer had been
thrust,
pockets.
"Show
"He has spit tobacco

through.
a
out crazy Ekerot!" said the fire-chief. plug into the ale, stuck Peter
is full
Painter with a bodkin, and
of mischief
all
Then shut up the folding table! There is command to bar the castle gates, for now it will
soon be over with His Royal Majesty's life." One of the wardens was Charles XI's faithful old servant, Hakon. He had a tranquil face, but walked so bowlegged in his stiff clothes that he looked as if he had just dismounted from a horse. He picked up the pot and stuck it good-naturedly under
Ekerot's arm.
"I
shall follow
you, constable," he said,

I
"or
lieutenant, or whatever
should
call
you."
" Lars Kkerot
is
jesty's battle fleet,"
a captain in His Gracious Maanswered Kkerot," and travelled
THE CHARLES MEN
and learned in tongues he is, too. Here in the castle attic one sees no distinction between folk and folk. I shall leave a report and complain of it, that I shall. Have I not told you that soon fire shall rain from heaven, and every rafter in this house break out into bright flame? Mercenary councillors, unrighteous judgments,- execration, and lamentation, that has become our daily bread, and the wrath of Heaven rests heavy on the land." " Lieutenant or captain you need not spread talk of worse misfortunes than those which God has
already given us to bear.
Round about
in the sub-
fire made way, and for ten years we have had failure of harvest and famine. Four bushels of rye already cost twelve rix-dollars in silver. Soon fodder will run short even in the royal stable,
urbs has the
and the boats with imported grain lie frozen solid out by the coast." Ekerot went down the steps beside him and looked around without fixing his small, restless eyes on any definite object. Sometimes he stood still, nodding and talking to himself in an undertone.
Through
castle
the loopholes
came glimpses of the
grounds far below and the covered terrace with obelisks and sentries who went back and forth in the trumpeters' gallery. Beyond the snow-covered towers and roofs, small groups of people moved on the frozen Malar between King's Island and
THE GREEN CORRIDOR

Soder.
The
light
of the
March evening shone

appeared as
if light
slanting through one of the halls in the western
wing of the
castle, so that
it
had
been kindled
burn,
in the chandelier.
"Yes, yes," mumbled Ekerot, "that shall all all all that which was our shame, all that which was our greatness. I have seen shining fellows in the heavens, and when I sit with my pipe
smoke wonderful show me that the old order of the world is upset. In Hungary and Germany rain down swarms of Arabia's grasshoppers. The firespurting mountains cast up glowing stones. Two years ago we had grass finger-high in the park in
at night,
see in the tobacco
planets, which
February and heard the birds of spring, but in September I picked strawberries at Essing. It is in such times that the Lord God opens the eyes of his elect so that they see what is hid." "In God's name, do not talk so!" stammered Hakon. "Do you see your visions waking or
asleep?" " Between the two." " I promise that I shall report every word to His
Royal Majesty himself,

count for
if
you, lieutenant,
all
will re-
me
quite veraciously
that
you have
seen and known.
Do you see down below there the two windows where the shutters are closed? It isn't half an hour since I was in there. There His Royal Majesty sits in a chair made into a bed with covers
THE CHARLES MEN
up
and pillows, and he has become so small and dried that he is only nose and lips. And he cannot raise his head. His poor Majesty, who has to endure such agony, though he is but some forty and odd years Formerly, when he came limping through the door, I was most glad if I could slip out, but though I am only the least among servants, he can now put his arms around my neck and press me to him with streaming tears. I do not believe that he feels much more warmly for his son than he did for
!
his wife.
When
his
speech and mostly
he sends for him, he sits and looks at him.
is
brief of
now only of
dom.
Up
to a
kingdom and again of his kingweek ago I saw on his knee housetariffs
He speaks
but
inspections and
and such
trifles,
now he
son
has written
down
his secret instructions to his
and laid the letter in a sealed iron casket. As soon as any one steps into the room, it is as if both with his feverishly gleaming eyes and his words he stammered a constant: 'Help me, help me to uphold the kingdom, to make my son worthy and prudent. The kingdom, the kingdom!'" Hakon passed his hand across his forehead, and they went on down the steps from loophole to loophole.
" In the room belowus to the
left is
Her Majesty,
the queen dowager. She has locked herself up during these last davs, and not even Tessin slips in with
his portfolios.
No one knows just what she is about.
"
THE GREEN CORRIDOR

but
I
can well believe that she does her best to ban-
thoughts with a game of cards. There 's and jinglingof watch-charms on the edge of the card table, and a crunching and a rustling and a frizzling of lace and ruffs and a cane with knob slips gold to the floor a "And the pretty Lady Hedwig Stenbock, who stands behind the chair, picks it up." " That she certainly does n't, for she is long since married and old and uglv, and at her own home. You live only in that which was and that which is
ish her sad
a tinkling
to be."
and which had just been reared by Tessin, after the old one had been levelled to the earth. Some scaffolds were still standing with fir branches on the highest pinnacles. " Well, who lives under that long box-lid ? Fie There lives no one at all and neither will any one come to live there, that I know, Whv could n't it be left to stand as it was? Devil take the Gottorp woman that put all this building nonsense into the head of His Roval Majesty You see, warder, just as every man has his soul, so every old house has in it all sorts of spooks and other creatures of darkness, which are disturbed and uncomfortable when people come with pick-axe and trowel. Do you remember the Green Corridor which used to run under the section of the roof above the old castle
his eyes
" That
may
be." Ekerot screwed
up
pointed to the north wing of the
castle,
THE CHARLES MEN

It
was there that for the first time I got my eyes opened. Oh, I '11 tell you all about it. I will tell you the whole story, warder, if you will follow me home and then keep your promise to relate every word to His Royal Majesty himself."
church?
Having now come down
to the entrance door,
they went on the drawbridge across the castle moat.
A courier with a leathern bag on his back was just about to dismount from his horse, and his answer to the many questions was heard through the trampling of feet and the orders. "For six miles north of Stockholm seen only They sat by the side of the three human beings road and fed on an animal that had died a natural death. In Norrland a pound of meal mixed with bark cost five rix-dollars in silver. Soldiers starving Regiments hardly half their completo death
ment Ekerot nodded assentingly,as if all this had been known to him long since, and he continued to walk beside Hakon with his pewter pot under his arm
hands stuck in his coat tails. they had come up to his attic room at Trangsund he gave Hakon a mistrustful sidelook, and when he stuck the key into the lock he ascertained carefully that the door had not been opened in his absence. The room was large and bare. In the window stood a cage with a squirrel, and on one wall was a medley of unlike pieces of
his
"
and
When
THE GREEN CORRIDOR

money
nailed
up
in rows.
There were bright Elbing

coins, a five-
rix-dollars, small
and large copper
ducat piece of Reval, and even a couple of Palm-
which had been worthless Ekerot advanced, inspected, and counted the money. "A fool," he said, "sinks his possessions so deep that he cannot himself keep watch over them, but I want to have them under my eyes, so that I can easily count them into a sack, when the great fire comes." Out of one corner, Ekerot carefully took five logs, which he put in the fireplace and lighted with a piece of tarred stick. Thereupon he and Hakon filled their pipes, and as there were no chairs, they sat on the floor in front of the blaze. " Well, let us hear now," said Hakon. Ekerot narrated
struch's old bank-notes,
for thirty years.
Never have
seen anything so frightful as the

at the time
Green Corridor. That was

constable with the battle
when
was
fleet.
Now they have given
me my
pension of two hundred and fifty dollars. Oh, to be sure. I was as good as driven from the service because people were afraid lest otherwise
little
I should end as admiral-in-chief. And that Hans Wachtmeister wants to be himself "The fellow is crazv!" he screamed on the deck, when I politely asked him to raise his hat before he ordered me into
lo
THE CHARLES MEN

I
And so it was all up with me. Crazy was called wherever I came and went. So it keeps on. A poor journeyman carries a comrade to the grave; then he carries his master to the grave; and at last, for a groat, he carries one after another, gets himself a glazed hat and a long black cloak, and when he is in a hurry rolls of braid fall out of and children take to their heels and his pocket scream: "The corpse bearer, the corpse weep and bearer!" But though one may become such a bugbear, at the beginning we are, to be sure, all baked of the same dough. Report that now, word for word, to His Royal Majesty in person. Ah well, at that time I was quite skilful in drawing and sketching. A few days before that quarrel with Wachtmeister,
the rigging.
Ekerot
therefore received a gracious
with
me
another constable,
command to take who was called Nils,
and appear in the store-room above the old papist church in the castle tower that stood by the river. There we were to draw a broken lantern of a galleon, according to which the queen dowager wished to have a new one made for her sloops on the
Malar.
When we had sat there in that manner for a day, gambling and worrying over the smashed lantern of the galleon, which the devil himself could n't have drawn, a merry fit came upon me, and I cried: "Nils, " have you ever seen a dog with five legs? When Nils shrugged his shoulders, I went on:
"
ii THE GREEN CORRIDOR saw one just now in Iron Square. He walked on
fifth
four legs, and the
he had in his mouth."

I
Nils got angry, and to provoke him
cried
if
still
you are brave. I '11 wager you this pewter pint measure filled with good Spanish wine and with a ducat at the bottom that I shall go alone at guard-bell through the Green Corridor." Nils replied: "I know that when you set your mind on anything it's no use trying to keep you from it, and I don't want that you should think
louder: "Clever you are not. Let's see
me
stingy of gifts. Therefore,
my
dear Ekerot,
I
take your wager as you desire, but
will
if
not bear
ill
the responsibility to your old mother

falls
any
be-
you. Therefore
prefer to go
home
is
to
my place.
to
In davtime this splendid building

see
;
fine
enough
but at night strange things are supposed to

I
happen here, and
'd
rather sleep in the wretchedest
hole in the suburb."

I called him poltroon, and let him ramble off home. As soon as I was alone, I noticed that it had already begun to grow dark, and, in order to harden myself, I went up the two or three winding stairways to the Green Corridor and looked through the
kevhole.
that the older bright red color
walls stood
all
Thegreen paint had fallen downin many places, so shone out. Along the
sorts of
household furniture that had been worn out and carried up there. I saw cabinets
12
THE CHARLES MEN

chairs,
in the far
and representations of dogs and horses, corner a bed with drawn curtains. On the sides were hidden recesses, where there was a dropping and dripping from the leaky roofing. It was Walpurgis Night and therefore somewhat light, and this restored me to a certain feehng of security, so that I could sit down and wait, but I knew that wondrous beings had their resort up there under the roof The warders called them night-goband and
because only at twilight did they lift up the dark boards and stick out their heads. They were not larger than a three-years' child, were brown all
lins,
over, naked, and had the bodies of
they would
died within
sit
mounted on
a cabinet
women. Often and wave their
arms, and he
who happened to touch a night-goblin the year. They were wont to spring
and sometimes they shrieked and clattered under the seats, so that the court ladies dared not go there, but rather lay in bed with colic all night. As soon as I heard the guard-bell, I opened the door wide. I took a step forward, but my terror was so great that I remained standing with hands on the doorjamb and only stared. Through a bare space in one of the chalked panes I looked all the way up to the tower at Brunkeberg, and that strengthened me so that I sprang right into the Green Corridor, in order that the ringing should not be still before 1 had got
about
in the attics,
in the privies
THE GREEN CORRIDOR

back.
ness
13
As long
as
it
sounded, the creatures of dark-
would have no power. In about the middle of the corridor I suddenly saw something dark shoot forward along the curtain-bed and slink down in one of the armchairs to hide or wait. My left knee gave way of itself, and
I
heard the echo of
It
scream through the attics. was from that time that my eyes were opened so
mv
that
men
called
me
crazy.
I saw that a man remained as motionless as I. All at once he seized me by the arm and whispered through his teeth: "/'V^/Zf di un cane! Spy? What areyouPThequeen dowager's warder?" " God bless me " I stammered, for now I understood that it was a fellow human being, and by the trembling and fumbling hands I comprehendedthat he was no less frightened than I myself. I even noticed that he was in his stocking feet, and had his shoes stuck in his bosom. I summoned my wits and described my foolish enterprise, and finally I was believed. "Such a damned, dilapidated old nest," growled
Against the light of the window,

sitting in the chair.
was
He
the man, to excuse his

are such drippings
own astonishment. "There
from the roof that my feet are wet through. As sure as I live, there shall be a new house here. My good man, if you can find the way, help me through this labyrinth of attics to the ball-
room.
Who
am
is
no matter."
14
THE CHARLES MEN

"Very good,"
I
answered, though
recognized
the gracious Chamberlain Tessin.
He was
I
silent,
and took
me
by the coat
tail,
and
turned and went before him. I imagine that at so bottom we were both equally pleased at having happened upon each other. When we came down to the
ballroom, he ordered
me
to stand outside the door,
but
heard the night-goblins jumping in the dark
behind us, and I kept my hand on the lock, so that I was instantly able to open the door again and steal
in after
him unnoticed. Through the window
saw
the river, and within, around the walls, stood a multitude of leaning side-scenes, painted with
trees
trimmed
and white temples. in the middle of thehall andclapped his hands thrice. A lady rose behind the side-scenes, and opened a little dark lantern. Who should it be but Hedwig Stenbock, the queen dowager's highborn lady-inwaiting " Look, look, look," I thought, biting my lips, " has that foreign dandy there climbed so high
Tessin stood
!
already?" " Hedwig,

he.
my
dearest of
all in
the world! " said
" Let us go directly to your room.
No
argu-
ments,
ma chere! " Hedwig Stenbock was then
nearlv thirtv-five,
and she went so stifflv and rigidly to meet him that I should not have believed she had either heart or soulj had she not all at once become wholly trans-

THE GREEN CORRIDOR
15
formed and showed the blood in her cheeks, when he embraced her. Then I forgot myself, and burst out half aloud,
"Aha, yes!"
Tessin turned around, but he was so hot that he
only knitted his eyebrows and spilled out
all
his
words
in
explaining
my
presence.
might have needed some assistant in any "and Ekerot may be as good as any one else. If he knows how to keep silent, he shall
case," said he,
"We
not be without reward."
He then ordered me to take the dark lantern and go through the empty conference chambers and on, by a course which thanks for the favor! he described, to the corridor where the queen dow-
sweet sleep, my pretties! As had carefully ascertained that no flies in court dress were buzzing around there, I was to return and so report. I had, however, something else to announce, when I did come back. I had heard the night-goblins clatter inside the door of the Art Room, and had seen them running with small sparks of fire in their hands down the stairs to the Archive Hall,
ager's ladies dwelt
soon
as
where the
affairs
of the kingdom lay
in
the wall
I
cabinets. Finally, in the aforesaid corridor
had
back
come upon one of
the queen dowager's warders,

his
who
sat asleep
over
dark lantern with
his
against the wall.
i6
THE CHARLES MEN
" He has been sent there since I left," said Hedwig Stenbock, and again she stood as stiff and straight as at first. "He does not suspect that the bird is already flown. But how to get back?" She pushed Tessin's arms from her and became
thoughtful. " Long have
I
feared and suspected. To-night

us.
scandal has
come upon
Her Majesty
is
jealous."
Tessin clutched in the air with his hands as if toward invisible swords and daggers, and his eyes
flashed and sparkled.
"Jealous
she
is
Of me? She is forty and grizzled, and somewhat hoarse and rough of voice like a
!
man. Shall I neverescape hearingthat babble? With should I have laid my plans and sought gracious protection, if not with Sweden's Hedwig Eleonora?" He bowed. "Yet fear not, my dearest one, for no shame shall attach to your days, but this very night you shall follow me hence. A sleigh can aland then addiol In Italy I have ways be had
whom
friends."
"God
will
in
heaven knows," she answered, "that

all,
always follow you wherever you desire, and for

I
men
care not at
but
will rather
first
I
be by you than
forsake you, yet

tain friend
we must
is
consider with a cer-
what
wisest.
am
thinking of Erik
Lindskiold,
who
this
evening
shall
little
His Majesty. Ekerot

courtyard to the king's
and drinks with go down across the staircase and wait there
sits
THE GREEN CORRIDOR

till
17
gies
he
Lindskiold comes.
shall
Then
with many
apolo-
entreat him
to hurry up here
to
me, Tessin made a dissuasive motion with his hand, but I paid little heed to the cavalier, finding a greater pleasure in obeying such a noble lady. It had drawn far into the nightwhen I came back, with Lindskiold. He interrogated me fully about everything. His peruke swayed, and he swore kindly, guffawed, and was as noisy as if the whole castle were his. When he came into the ballroom, he bent one knee, while he threw his hat into the air and cried "Are ye altogether staggering mad, my worthy folk, who of love would partake and never forsake, though all to hinder you watch and wake? Your inclination gives more delectation than elevation. Paff, poof! A poor master builder, who thrives bv adventure, though good luck bewilder, may not without censure suppose himself worth, sir, a lady of birth, sir. That day began mankind's vexation when Adam awoke at Eve's creation and said, impelled by a new proclivity: * Congratulations on " your nativity "Fiddlededilly, reeling silly " muttered Tessin to his lady. " That 's what they call the Swedish esprit. Lindskiold is drunk." "Only a trifle. He is in the most favorable
:
!
'
mood."
i8
THE CHARLES MEN
Lindskiold did not hear them, but went on so that the wide hall rang: "I have long suspected
this,
and the
travel to Italy
a land that
take it ill. But Ah, bah Here the chamberlain has needs his genius. Let him look me in the
titled class is likely to
!
whites of the eyes, and say whether he can travel
from the designs for the royal castle that he has spread out on my table, whether anything in the world is as dear to him as his art." Tessin became blood-red, and looked down in the light of the lantern. " I have determined to marry Chamberlain Tessin," said Hedwig Stenbock, " and that is how this has happened." Lindskiold laid his hand on his heart: "Of course, of course says the royal widow. A wreath will I twine, the best to be had, of flower and vine from my Lindevad. I was born at no manor, with chapel and banner, and my sire was a smith, but they made him forthwith aha, burgomaster of Skenninge. Think if the chamberlain had sprung from Skenninge. How would he have built then? A new royal castle in the Skenninge style? A sight
!
for the city, or the devil
would be
his to
be just
may get me What who he is!"

!
pride
Lindskiold seized Tessin by the arm in a lofty, if he suddenly threw off a spattered masquerade cloak. " Let him calm his ardor for a moon or so. To
threatening way, with a gesture as
THE GREEN CORRIDOR

begin with, the chamberlain
a reverence,
I
19
now
kisses the
his chosen one, goes three steps backwards,
hand of makes
and then follows with me. Silent, when Ekerot goes back to the dowager's warder, blows out his lantern, wakes him with a sound and expressive box on the ear, and throws his shoes after him when he runs, so that he
talk in the halls of the king
!
believes
it is
the night-goblins. Afterwards the gratranquil to her
cious
young lady returns unseen and
room. It is fully determined that she, in due time, shall go along on a trip to Pomerania. Then the chamberlain overtakes her, and marries her in all secrecy. His Majesty I shall see to here at home. The Gottorp misfortune I mean the royal dowager crafty woman her the devil himself cannot
to
control, but the high-noble set,
them
've heard
I
assessed before the Royal Commission, and
shall
know them
are worth.
well
enough
New times are at

at the
remind them what they hand here. Ah, my chilthe breast

fills,
dren,
my
children, if you
knew how
when one stands
helm of state and steers according to distant beacons, whose name one dares not once utter to His Royal Majesty himself. But for the present, rely on my word. Here where we now stand, the chamberlain shall build his immortality."
Confusedly Tessin drew his hand to his lips, and when I had performed mv errand with the warder, he handed me, with a supercilious grimace.
20
THE CHARLES MEN

hang there on the
if
the two Palmstruch notes that

wall.
"There you have your promised reward,

are silent,"
you
he said. But then began my visions and misfortunes, and

I
when
sat sick in
my room
in
at
home,
became
by-word
the square
gout,
I
my
ailments
lung
trouble, snuff disease, accidental bullets in the leg
and buzzing
lain
in the head.
And when
I
pulled out
the Palmstruch. notes which the dishonorable vil-
stuck into
my
coat pocket,
found that they
had
that
lost all value
many Lord's
years before. Report
now
to
His Royal Majesty's person!
Ekerot would have related still more, but there was a violent banging on the door, and a messenger called Hakon to the king, who was worse. Some days later, on the second day after Easter, people said that the king lay at the point of death,
all
in his usual way as if it had been known to him before. A crowd of men and maid-servants, who had been dismissed in the coun-
but Ekerot only nodded
try because
of the famine, stood homeless and de-
spairing on the streets in the snow, and Ekerot went
from group to group with his hands in his coat tails, and listened and nodded. By night he composed letters of prophecy, which he then presented
to the court pastor superior, Wallin.
"The
unfor-
tunate," he wrote, "are accustomed to see in the
THE GREEN CORRIDOR

which
is
21
darkness, so that in the end they can discern that
dim and hidden

April day,
to those blinded
by the
his
light of prosperity."
One windy
last letter
when he had just stuck
come home
of prophecy under Wallin's entry door and to his room, he sat down at the window
and prattled with the squirrel. Now and then he chewed at some dried pears, which he picked out of a drawer. Just as he was sitting so, he heard the tocsin and alarm, and when he stretched himself out through the window, he saw the castle roof enveloped in yellow smoke. Turning around to the room, he began to take down the coins from the
wall,
counting them accurately into
his pocket.
as,
He
trembled, and his teeth chattered,

squirrel cage
with the
the
under one arm and the pewter pot

stairs to
under the other, he toddled down the

street.
He was jostled
staring
against the house wall, and stood
up
at the castle,
where roaring streaks of fire
already spurted forth under the dark rafters. Soon

all
three of the wings flamed like huge bonfires, and
the thunderous noise of the conflagration

the tocsin and the trumpet flourishes.
drowned
"Look, look!" he said. "The night-goblins must out into the light of day. Look how they jump in
rows along the roof-ridges with fire in their hands! Now thev climb up on the tower roof and hop over the new Tessin addition, which disturbed their com-
22
fort.
THE CHARLES MEN

They want
to
burn themselves
all." only the beginning. It will all burn Soldiers and warders thronged on the castle bridge amid barrels of water and itinerant chairs,
in
it.
This
is
cabinets,
and paintings. Under the two
lions that
held the coat-of-arms above the door of the gate
stepped forth
Charleses.
Hedwig Eleonora,
the mother of the

car-
Two courtiers supported and almost

still
wanted
shrunk together, and constantly and look back. The wind raised the mantilla over her silver-gray hair, and the next moment drew it as a veil over her eyes red with weeping, her proud aquiline nose, and thickly
ried her, for she
to stand
painted cheeks.
"The pyre is burning under your son's body," shouted Ekerot, pointing. "And the throne on which your grandson has ascended is burning, and before you close your eyes his whole realm shall be burned in ashes. Don't you remember that he was born with blood on his hands?" He made his way anxiously along the wall and around the corner to Trangsund. Sparks rose to heaven like stars, and beyond the churchyard wall one saw the great castle tower called the Three Crowns, which rose four full stories above the highest roof. With every story that the fire conquered, the smoke burst out through the loopholes as from cannon. That 's the night-goblins, thought he, who fire victory salutes, while the citadel of the Vasa
THE GREEN CORRIDOR

kings
is
23
burning. Again and again, the
smoke
en-
veloped the ancient arms of the realm on and again, dizzyingly high, gleamed of the tower forth the golden crowns, like three storm birds resting on their wings. The ringers of St. Nicholas Church climbed up the steps to swing even the
the spire
great bell and the preliminary bell, but
when they
heard the rumble, as the tower floors and vaulting
plunged down together, pulling the spire and arms with them in the fall, they turned and fled. Smitten with terror, children and women began to sob and run, and it was told that people at the South Gate saw an insane man steal out with a squirrel cage and a pewter pot, singing in an undertone an old song
of penance.
Sermon
Great Church the audience arose from their IN pews and looked toward the armory, before
which Charles XII dismounted from his carriage. He was a handsome, but slender and undeveloped boy. His hat, edged with plumes, sat comically in its smallness
upon the
great curly peruke,
and when the king stuck it under his arm, his gestures were nervous and embarrassed. He walked trippingly, a trifle bent in the knees, as was the fashion, and his eyes were lowered. His costume of mourning was precious with ermine on the facings and blonde lace around the gloves, and on his highheeled shoes of cordovan leather he had buckles and ribbon rosettes. Bewildered by the inquisitive glances, he took his place in the royal pew, under the gilded crown upborne by genii. He sat stiflly, facing the altar, but was unable to collect his thoughts around the sacred
ceremonies.
When, at last, the
minister stepped into
the pulpit and with an epigram and a vigorous blow on the back of the book aroused a subdued murmur, the king reddened and felt himself caught in
the very act. Directly, however, his thoughts be-
came the same rebels as they were just before, and went their own ways. To cover his shyness, he began to pluck ofi^ the black points on the ermine.
"
Look
at
un," said a
woman
in
one of the bot-
A SERMON
torn pews.
rod.
25
"He
still
needs to wear out his father's

i'
Has
That
the devil bit un

's
th' fingers?"
wench, who has to her!" answered a grand lady, and pushed her headlong out into the aisle. The old man with a cane, who stood down by the door and had the office of going around and cuffing on the neck those of the congregation who went to sleep, tapped on the floor and menaced with his hand, but the scuffle was heard as far up as the pews of the nobility, so that the fine gentlemen turned their heads, and the preacher straightway interpolated the following words: "Concord, I said, Christian concord! Whither does she repair with her mild sweet-gruel? To the populace, perchance? Hold her fast! In God's house or around His Royal Majesty's own person, perchance? Well for him who finds her Therefore I say unto you, ye princes of the earth, seek diligently for concord and love, and lift not into strife the sword which God has placed in your hand, but lift it only for the defence of your subjects." At this allusion the young king again blushed red and laughed shamefacedly. Even Hedwig Eleonora, the queen dowager, in the royal pew just oppositeto him, nodded simperingly,but the young princesses beside her laughed most of all. Ulrica Kleanora sat tolerably stiff, but Hedwig Sophia
for her to say, the dirty
"
traipsed into a higher
pew than belongs
26
THE CHARLES MEN
leaned forward with her slim long neck. In happy consciousness that she wore gloves, so that her mal-
formed thumbs were not visible,she held the prayerbook in front of her mouth. The king now became bolder and looked around. In what a strange temple of the Lord he found himself on this day! The whole church was overcrowded with the furniture and objects of art which had been saved from the fire at the castle. Only the middle aisle was free. In the corner up by the
altar stood, rolled
up, Ehrenstrahl's representa-
and the Last Judgment, and behind the tomb of the Skyttes he recognized the plume-tufts and the green curtains from the bed on which his father, sitting crosswise and supported on pillows, had given up the ghost. The recollection of this, however, moved him not, since he had scarcely felt for his father anything but fear. He had seen in him rather the deputy appointed by God than the dear blood-relation, and in his thoughts as in his speech he preferred to call him plainly and simply, the old king. Like two questing bees, his eyes wandered over the numerous familiar objects, and tarried long at last on a coat-ofarms on the nearest pillar. There, since several years, rested beneath the floor his teacher, Nordenhjelm, the good-hearted old Norcopensis whom he had loved with childish
tions of the Crucifixion
enthusiasm.
He
recalled hours of study early in
A SERMON
winter mornings,
27
when he sat and learned the four branches of ciphering, and poked at the wick with
when Nordenhjelm
told sto-
the candle-snuffers, or
ries
of the heroes of Greece and Rome. Since the king's death he had walked in a dream. He old understood that he must not show gayety, that lamentation was the only thing he had license to claim, but at the same time he saw that there were many
who were
quite ready in private to court his favor
by.amusing him though attracting as little attention now with one prank, now with another. Even His Excellency Piper could at the same time dry his tears and beg the king not to forsake his youthful sports but play a game of shuttlecock. The gloomy, serious faces about him afflicted him sometimes, so that the tears sprang into his own eyes, but from the most secret depth of his boyish soul rose thedizzying, triumphal intoxication ofvictory. The morose and stiff-necked old men whom he had formerly feared and shunned, he had suddenly found humble and submissive. Sometimes at table, while they were sitting with their most anxious expression, he had audaciously filliped fruit
as possible,
seeds into their faces so as to see them laugh
all
at
once, and then go away again and rangethemselves

in a
lugubrious ring around the queen dowager.
The burning
excitement.
of the
castle,
with
its
adventures and
jolliest
dangers, had been for him a day of curiosity and

It
had even been almost the
28
THE CHARLES MEN

his
life,
day he had yet had in
though he himself
of the others grandmother's faintings had only made that wild spectacle the more strange and extraordinary. Now all the old life was done. The old king was dead, and his stronghold in ashes. All the new, all, all that Sweden longed for, should now mount and there on high with him like a flame of fire he sat, lonesome and fourteen years old. It seemed to him next that Nordenhjelm stood at the pulpit behind the speaker and dictated the words. Only for an instant had the ministershaken the clown's staff with bells so as to make himself intimate with his listeners. Then he addressed himself to the king in sight of all the congregation, earnestly, strictly, yes, even commandingly. He required him, in the name of God, not to let himself be led to vanity and pride by sycophants and hangers-on, but to dedicate his actions unselfishly to the unselfish people of Sweden, so that when, in the fullness of years, he closed his weary eyes, he might be followed by the blessings of thousands, and might enter into God's glory. The voice of truth sang and'thundered beneath the arches of the church, and a lump rose in the
did not dare to think so.
affright
The
and
his
young
king's throat.
He
tried afresh to link his
thoughts to other, indifferent things, but every word struck his upright childish heart, and he sat with bowed head.
A
It
SERMON
29
was a relaxation for him when the carriage took

to Karlberg,
him again
into
There he bolted himself
his apartments,
summons of the dowager down to table.

I
and not even the resolute could induce him to go

lay the
n the
room outside his sleeping-chamber
books which were used in his rarer and rarer lesson-hours. Already he liked to philosophize over the riddles of creation, and he was always fascinated by the sciences, but he began to despise books like a merry troubadour intoxicated with life. The uppermost work dealt with geography, and, after turning the page back and forth, he threw it to one side. Then, vehemently and at random, he drew out instead the bottom book. With it he re-
mained sitting. It was broken at the corners and severely worn, and the contents was only a few manuscript pages
with the evening prayers that he had learned to
recite as a child.
Many
sentences and words had
already been frozen out of his
memory, but
as
he
now saw
the familiar lines before him, he needed
only to read them through two or three times to
know them by
heart.
In the evening he ate only a cup of beer-soup,
and the warders then began to undress him. He bore his violent emotions with such propriety that they only thought he was tired, and when they lifted the peruke from his short-clipped and dark-
30
THE CHARLES MEN

hair,
brown, somewhat wavy

girl.
his shirt into the great bed,
and he climbed up in he looked like a little

his feet,
The dog Pompey
crept
up by
and be-
low the foot of the bed a lighted candle was set in a basin of silver filled with water. The king was afraid of the dark, and it had therefore become the custom that the door to the outer room should be left open, and that a page or playmate should
spend the night there. This evening, however, the king ordered with decision that the door hereafter should be closed. Only when they heard that did the warders begin to wonder and become uneasy, noticing that he was disturbed in spirit. "Ah bah!" grumbled old Hakon, the faithful servant from his father's days, who obstinately continued to treat the king as a child. "To what shall
that serve ?"
"It
"And
shall be as I have said," answered the king. from to-morrow on the night-light is not ne-
cessary either."
The warders bowed as they went backwards from the sleeping apartment, but when Hakon had closed the door, he sat down on the threshold outside. One of the warders, who was named Hultman, also remained there standing. They heard how the king turned and threw himself on the mattress, and when Hakon finally stretched himself up to the keyhole, he saw indistinctly in the glimmer
A SERMON
upright in bed.
31
of the night-light that his young lord was sitting
Gusts of the night wind roared and rattled out on the castle terrace and in the lindens of Karlberg Park, but within doors it was already hushed and still. Yet Hakon thought, to his wonderment,
that he could distinguish a muffled, almost whis-
pering
human
voice, and even detached words.

listened.
He
became attentive and
He
pray
heard then that the king recited with half-
raised voice the prayers he

in his earliest
had taught himself to
childhood.
"Teach me
to control
led by flattering talk to
and thereby to sin to God and men." Old Hakon brought his knees together and clasped his hands for prayer, and, through the stillness and the soft rustle of the blast, he heard continually the words of the king. "Though the son of a king and hereditary heir to a mighty kingdom, I yet would always humbly consider that these things are a special grace and blessing of God, on which account I must strive after Christian virtues and knowledge, so that I may become skilful and worthy in so great a calling. Almighty Lord, Thou who dost raise up kings and put them down, teach me ever to obey Thy
myself and not to be mispresumption and self-will, against the regard which I owe
commands,
so that
may never
to
my own
ruin
32
THE CHARLES MEN
and the oppression of others misuse the power that Thou lendest me. For Thy holy name's sake.
Amen."
The Successor
to
the
Throne
How long were the days at where the black-clad councillors of state yawned in armchairs and stared in front of them, as if they pondered how it was that they were similarly shod on both feet, and had not ajack-boot on one and a silken slipper on the other. And so they yawned again and out on the stairway the warders yawned, and down in the kitchen the cooks tasted the viands with their fingers in the grease, and said to one another: "Is that sour enough, so that the great gentlemen will at once make wrv faces?"
dull
it
HOW
the
was!
little
court,
The coachmen harnessed horses with black plumes and ribbons in front of black carriages. Black broadcloth was being cut out or sewed on all the tables. In the church on Grayfriars' Island, where the old king had been interred, the black canopies and tapestries still hung, and the king's funeral knell was heard far out into the country.
When, finally, the coronation train moved forth over the snowy streets, all went in mourning, and only the young king wore his purple. The echo of
the last festal salutes had hardly rolled over
Tysk-
bagareberg, before the

days.
same
intolerable
dulness
again settled over the throne in the dark Yuletide
Then, one
sullen gray noon, the dowager's mas-
"
34
ter
THE CHARLES MEN

cook stamped on the
floor.
In his hands he held
pot with boiled tomatoes. '' Ach^ du Lielêr! There 's something to do here to-
day.
His Grace, the Duke of Holstein, who
is
to be
expected here shortly, has sent us a costly gift. Her Majesty and Mistress Greta Wrangel have already
is
and Tessin, who is a travelled man, coming down into the kitchen himself to advise us in the preparation. Don't stand there gaping,
tasted the fruit,
boys. Dishcloths to the saucepans!
Ruband polish !"
The remote
of.
little
court in the outermost corner
of the world had that day gotten something to think
was of nothing else than the tomatoes, and each and all had something to say about their smell and flavor. Meanwhile there was drinking, and the old councillors who had been invited, growing mellow, forgot their intrigues and said drolly agreeable things to one another. After the meal the king took Councillor Lars Wallenstedt by the coat-button, and led him along to the window recess, like a panting grumble-bear with a ring through its nose, "Tell me," inquired the king earnestly, "how should a prince sacrifice himself for his people? That sermon of last spring never leaves mv mind." Wallenstedt had the habit when he talked of puffing out his lips as if he were saving " Pooh Accustomed to the king's precocious and penetrating questions, he answered: "A prince should
table the talk
!
At
THE SUCCESSOR TO THE THRONE

sacrifice all small
35
misgivings, gather
his
himself, become That was truly
power to people's archetype and will.

all
a pious discourse
time
to
in
church, but does not the
we heard that Most Reverend
Bishop Spegel say that subjects should be as thralls their lord? The councillors and nobles now quarrel but for their share of the power since the time of Your Majesty's revered father. And Oxenstjerna and Gyllenstjerna and ah, well they have their ears to the ground. But it was for that reason I always ventured to support Your Majesty's will that even at your youthful years you should shift the heavy weight of government from the shoulders of Her Majesty the queen dowager." When Cronhjelm, the king's tutor, who stood in the recess, heard the words about the weight of government, he wrote with his finger on the moisture of the window-pane: "The old woman feels that burden as deliciously light as her head-dress." "Yes, yes, my dear Wallenstedt," the king meanwhile answered. " I, too, have alwavs felt within me that my will urged me in that direction. On Atland's
wondrous troublesome thing to will. How is that? To-day I feel that I will ride to Kungsor and hunt bears. But why? I might equally well will something else. Will is to me a fetter, a chain drawn tight around my breast,
throne a
sit.
man must
It is a
from which I cannot twist myself free. ter, and I am the servant."
It is
the mas-
36
THE CHARLES MEN

Wax
candles were already lighted
when he
the table
stepped into his outer apartment.
On
stood the sealed iron box in which the old king
had deposited his final secret and fatherly instructions. Many days had elapsed since the retiring guardians of the realm had let it leave their hands, but he had not yet been able to bring himself to open the lid. One night, to be sure, he had violently torn off the seal, but he had then shrunk back. This evening he felt that the will was come. But when he set the key in the rattling iron, his old fear of the dark fell upon him. He saw before him the old king's coffin of tin, on which had just fallen the spadefuls of earth, and it came over him that now he was to stand eye to eye with the dead. He called in Hakon, and bade him lay wood on the fire. Meanwhile he turned the key, threw back the lid, and with chilly trembling unfolded the closely
written paper.
the power into your own hand," stood "and beware of the great lords who are about you, of whom many have French stomachs. Those who chatter most eagerly hanker only after their own interests, and the best at times keep their own
there,
"Take
counsel."
When
tice that
he had read to the end the anxious and
mistrustful warnings of the departed, he did not no-
Hakon had
left
the apartment.
all
Now
he was lord over
the land of Sweden.

The
to declare
37
high dignitaries had thronged outside his door
him of
age.
selves whether their
Did they even know themwords were dictated by the

their
hope of favor or by pure intentions? Did they not

love him
more than they did
own sons
or
brothers? But nevertheless he could not talk familiarly
with these old men,
who weighed and
adjusted
their speech.
And
could he talk with those of his
own age, a crowd of shyly courteous playmates, who knew naught of the affairs of the day Alone
?
he went about as never before, and alone he had

to carry the old king's sceptre.
Nothing could be
Sweden's kings he
greater than Sweden, and of

willed to be the foremost
all
and
best.
Had
he not re-
it from the hands of Almighty God, in that he was exalted to be a ruler so young, with the many years of a long life before him ? The old, which had brought down the wrath of God, was now passed away. Song rose on high, there was jubilation of drums and trumpets. He arose, and his hand fell with a light blow on the edge of the table. Piper was right. Piper had said that Sweden was a great realm with a little court in a small town at the world's end. There was to be no more of that. He had himself set the crown upon his head, and had ridden to church with it. Had he not already received it from God at the hour of his birth, on
ceived a token of
the
June morning when the
glittering star of the
38
THE CHARLES MEN

floor-cloth
Lion's Heart ascended above the rim of the east?
The
on the
streets, in
which
his horses'
hoofs had beaten holes, he had given to the peasantry for clothing, but the nobles had had to go on
and the very councillors of state had borne canopy and waited on him like warders. Why should he dissimulate, why should he confer honor on men whom he did not honor in his soul? Had
foot,
his
he ever given a royal charter? The Estates, but not he, had had to take oath. His kingly vow he had sworn in silence before God, as he stood at the altar. Now, now was he lord over all the land of Sweden!
went to the hanging mirror, eyed complapock-marks in his girlish skin, and compressed with his fingers the stern furrow in his
cently the small
He
brow.
Then
on
a chair,
he pointed into space, sat himself astride and galloped around the room.
for
Brilliant,
"Forward, boys, forward !" jump, jump
your king! Jump,
imagined he was riding over a meadow enemy and that hundreds of bullets struck him on the breast, but fell flattened in the grass. Round about on the heights stood spectators, and at a distance the very king of France came on a white horse and waved his hat. In the hall below, the old dignitaries still stood in conversation. When thev heard the racket, they were still a moment and listened, but Cronhjelm
against the
He
"

wrote
in the
is
39
"That
the
only His Majesty
moisture and grumbled half aloud: who is occupied with

realm.
management of the
He is devising marks
of favor for us in return for declaring him of age." Wallenstedt blew out his lips and gave him a
furious glance.
When the king had galloped all around
his
room,
a sudden recollection struck him, and he went to
the door. " Klinckowstrom !" he cried, " Klinckowstrom,
can you
tell
me whv
have just now taken such
fancy for riding to
Kungsor and hunting bears?"

:
Klinckowstrom, a merrv page with red cheeks and a light tongue, answered *' Because it 's pitch dark and infernal weather, and because no bear is started, so that hunting is impossible. Shall I give orders for horses and torch-riders?" "Have you any better suggestion?"
"All other suggestions are better, but
"No, vou
just because
will it."
are right.
it
Kungsor seems impossible, and because we

must
ride to
We
king rode down Queen suburban place which extended below St. Clare's churchyard to a yellow-painted house. There an old widow known as Mother Malin kept an inn. The grounds were fenced in with boards, on which the builders at
a little later, the
When,
Street, he passed close to a
work on the
castle,
when
in
summer they emptied
40
THE CHARLES MEN

Mother
Malin's, had painted arches
their glasses at
of triumph and obelisks and dancing Italians. In
one corner lay a pleasure-house having a fireplace and chimney. One window was on Queen Street, the other faced inward on plum trees and flowerbeds, now covered with snow. For several weeks Mother Malin had daily carried food to the pleasure-house, but no one of her old customers knew anything with certainty as to the guest she lodged within. At a sale of a noble familv, whom narrowed circumstances had bowed to the earth, she had purchased for her guest a piano, and in the evenings behind the closed shutters were heard strange melodies, accompanied by a weak and delicate voice. Just as the king's torch-bearers approached, Mother Malin was standing at a crevice of the planks, looking out upon the dark street. "It's he himself," she burst out, and thumped on the door of the pleasure-house. " It 's the king that 's coming. Put out the light and peep through
the heart in the shutter!"
At that momentthekingdashedbyin wild career. "So handsome he is o' the cheeks, the gracious young lord " she said, and went down again to her inn. "And pure and holy is his life, too. But why
!
should he tempt God and set the crown on his head with his own hands? That 's why he slipped on the way, and the box of sacred ointment thudded on
the floor of the church."
41
The night went by, and so did month after month. In the garden the chestnut trees became
green again, as well as the plum trees behind the
barberry and currant bushes.
raised,
The Maypole was

to Karlberg.
and the court drove by
Beside the king sat the
Duke
of Holstein,
who
had come to marry his sister. Princess Hedwig Sophia, and make an end of the intolerable dulness. As they drove past the pleasure-house, he happened by accident to throw a glance through the wide open window. In the evening came a man with his cape-collar up, who knocked stealthily at the inn, but Mother Malin regarded him mistrustfully. "Be off to the devil with your cape-collar!" said she. He laughed loudly and talked broken Swedish. " I lie here on one of the German galleons, and would but have a mug of berry juice in your garden. Schnelir'
He
thrust a couple of coins into her hand and

aside.
it
pushed her
She was near
to giving
him
blow, but, as
was, she counted her
money and
thought things over. She put the mug of syrup on the earthen bench in the garden, but she herself sat behind the half-closed shutters to keep the new customer under her eyes. He sipped a little at thejuice, wrote with his heel on the sand, and looked about him. When he had sat awhile and thought himself unobserved, he
42
THE CHARLES MEN

down
his collar.
arose and turned
He
handsome gentleman, of
a daring
was a young, and merry ap-
pearance, and he walked slowly along the path.
"
"Impudent villain!" muttered Mother Malin, vow he 's going to knock at the door of the
pleasure-house."
When
under
his
the door remained shut, he shrank several
paces aside to the open window, and stuck his hat
arm
in
knightly fashion.
Then he
sat
on
the window-sill and spoke softly and eagerly.
With
that
Mother Malin's
out.
patience gave way,
and she went
She walked on the sand path,
twisting a thread of yarn between her fingers and
holding her head slyly bent forward. Meanwhile

she meditated on the abuse which she should utter.
But when she had gone a little wav, the young gentleman flew from out the barberrv hedge, and roared
with the most disrespectful wrath,
march
am
the
"Ha, you crone, Duke of Holstein. But not a word

so astonished that she could
of this!"
Mother Malin was
only turn completely around and smite herself on the knee. Again, when shewent back into the house,
she smote her knee, and could not comprehend that it was she, precisely, in her little abode, who had
come
It
to experience
anything so great and extraor-
dinary.
then happened often in the bright,
summer
evenings,
when
the chestnuts stood without show-

ing a breath of wind, that the
place.
43
duke came
to the
of the pleasure-house was never opened, no matter how insinuatingly he rapped, but he sat on the window-sill; and Mother Malin,
The door
who had meanwhile
got a shining ducat in her
kirtle-pocket, served there both syrup
and wine,
and once even a raisin-cake, on which she had written with white of egg: "No prince on earth has nobler worth." On this particular evening the duke tarried
longer than at other times, and within the plea-
sure-house the piano sounded.
As
he finally rose to go, he said

to be sure,
silent.''
" Power, power?
alone be
all cry out for it. Why should you Consider that your father has played away his last sovereign. Adieu, adieu! If you fail with the Hon, you bid fair next to hold the door
Why
open
for the
wolf"
The duke stood before the window. It was hushed and still, for down at the inn all had by now gone
to bed.
not answer," he continued. " Is it shyanswer with a sign. One stroke on the piano means Yes, but if you trill with your little
ness?
"You do Then
finger-tips
it means No, irrevocably No." went lingeringly down the path. The night heavens were bright, the ground without shadow, and he felt about in a gooseberrv bush without being able to find any fruit. Then a chord sounded
He
44
softly
his
from
THE CHARLES MEN the piano. He pressed his
hat
down on
head, drew his cloak about him, and hastened
from the garden with cheerful steps. After that night. Mother Malin went about in vain waiting to open the gate at dusk for the great lord. In ill humor, she began at last to draw from her pocket and count over the ducats, and she cursed herself because she had not at the right time known how to entice to her yet more. Meanwhile, one evening, a barber's widow had been buried in the churchyard of St, Clare, and after the twelve torch-bearers had gone, two journeymen remained to keep watch. They sat on planks by the grave and spoke ill of the house of mourning. "They ought to smart for it. The old hag lay covered in a cambric bonnet with crape ribbons, like a noble, and both spice-cakes and preserves stood on the table, but here to us they have n't even sent
a
stoop of small beer."
the heart in
"I see across the wall that light is shining through Mother Malin's shutters. Should n't we
go there and knock?" They went out on the street to the yellow wooden house and thumped on the tin. Mother Malin set one of the shutters ajar.
"You come
she,
just in the nick of time, lads," said
when she recognized them. "
No one has treats
to offer in these days,
but you can earn a pretty
penny."

She pushed open the shutter
lowered her voice.
still
45
further and
"Here you have

piece. Yes,
each of you a whole Charlesit,
you noisy lads; it'll stand Within here stands a royal page, who is soon coming down to you. At dawn, as usual, some night-cuckoos from the court are to ride by here. Pretend then to trip up and thrash the young gentleman, and afterwards take to your heels. That 's all." "That seems right enough," said the journeymen, and thumbed the coins. "The hardest thing will be not to lay on in the excitement so that it
look
of.
at
taking hold
cuts."
churchyard gate and waited, and they heard Mother Malin whispering with the page up in the room. The time grew long. A star flamed over the deadhouse in the summer heat, the fire-watch called on Brunkeberg, and the dawn drew near. There was a creaking and squeaking on Mother Malin's steps, and the page, walking with knees somewhat turned in and arranging the buttons of his coat, came down to the journeymen. In the alley off Queen Street was heard roistering and trampling of horses. First rode Klinckowstr6m,who was so drunk that he had to hold himself on by his horse's mane. Behind him could be seen the king, the Duke of Holstein, and some ten
to the
They went back
46
THE CHARLES MEN

all
other riders. All had blades in their hands, and
but the king were in only their shirts. He was mad with drink, and with his sword knocked in win-
dow-panes,
doors.
lifted off
signboards, and cut at

in the
wooden
whole world whom he need obey. He could now do anything whatever that occurred to him, and no one would have a single word of reproach. Let them but dare At supper he had struck the dishes from the pages' hands and thrown fragments of cake on his comrades' clothes, so that they had white marks as from snowballs. The intolerable old was now done with. The old men might yawn and clear their throats by their snuff-jars as they pleased. They had no longer anything to attend to but to be fools. He dedicated his old kingdom of bears to joy and the spirit of youth. The whole of Europe should be amazed. Now he was lord over all the land of Sweden! Meanwhile the unknown page had laid himself on the ground in the churchyard gate, and the journeymen pinched and beat to their heart's content, and clutched at his throat. " Who 's there ? "shouted the king, and set upon the journeymen, who straightway fled between grave-mounds and crosses. He was close at their heels, and stabbed one of them several times in the left arm, so that the blood dripped. At last, in defence, thev lifted one of the planks by the half!
There was no one now

filled
47
grave of the barber's widow. Then the king laughed and rode back to the wicket gate. "One of ours?" he inquired of the unknown, who had picked himself up again. "What, are you so tipsv that you don't even know our password: SnufFon all perukes? No matter. Sit up behind our friend Klinckan, and hold him fast on his Wallach.
Forward!" Singing and hallooing, the shirt-clad band dashed on along street and hillside, waving and making long noses at the sleep-dazed folk who came to the
gates.
When
shal Stenbock, that
himself to
Marmost worthy old man went the window in his dressing-gown and,
the panes tinkled about Chief
at last,
it
was necessary for him to flee the realm. But the king tore his wig from him, and cut it in two halves with his
sword.
bowing, began to lament that,
"This is life!" shouted the Duke of Holstein. "Hats in the air! If we could only take along all
who sit and peep in their bed-chambers. Wigs in the air! Rise in your stirrups and piddle over your horses' heads! Soho, bovs! Devil take you. Vivat Cwrolus, king of Swe" den and of scandals
the royal ladv wooers
!
Shirts were fluttering out; hats, wigs,

lay
and gloves
on the
street; hoofs struck

in a fire.
sparks, and the
horses rushed forward as
When
the wild
riders
had come back
to
the
48
castle,
THE CHARLES MEN

they sprang from their saddles, and
let
the
horses run as best they could.
Upon
the stairs they
broke the lampshades and fired pistol shots at a marble Venus. ! '^ Vorwdrts '' shouted the king, as he stormed with all his following into the chapel, and slashed amain at the pews. " They shall get splinters in their breeches here o' Sunday." The duke pounded on the floor demanding silence, and Klinckowstrom, who had set to throwing dice in the circle of the altar, held his hand over his mouth so as to keep still. "Dearly beloved listeners!" began the duke. " Nothing could make this earnest occasion more
solemn than
in-law
in
if
my
exalted and charming brotherus, his
this
morning hour would give

of
ladies that
faithful servants, a hint as to the choice
his heart.
Let us speak of
woo! Let us think of

all
the baggage from Bavaria
who scampered
the
way hither with her sweet mother, though there was hardly any lodging for her after the castle was burned. Oohoo! says the owl. Only eight little
tulip-red
summers older than Your Majesty. Or of Wurtemburg, who already showed her amorousness by paying suit to Your Majesty's father of most blessed memory, and who is sickly
the Princess of
Don't cough during the ceremony Or of the Princess of Mechlenburg-Grabow, who with
in the chest.
!
her mother
is
also
supposed
to be climbing into her

travelling-coach.
is
49
Or
of the Prussian princess,
who
only two never-so-little sugar-grain years older;
little pinkand-gold bird, who is only five small rose-leaf years older. All of them are bent upon wooing, and
or the Danish princess, the tooty-tooty
sprucing themselves up, and beautifving their pictures, because their love afflicts
them
full
sore."
The
I
king became abashed and replied,
"Have
think
not always said that surely no
man need
of being married before he is forty?" As the duke noted hisembarrassment, he winked

at the
page from the inn and pounded anew on the

will
floor.
"Verv good. His Majesty of Sweden

parcel out his glory
not
and the love of his subjects in anything else than manly courage and joy. Snuff" on all wigs! Were I the monarch of the Swedes, I should therefore frighten the old fellows outof their wits by summoning the prettiest ladies and minxes
Potztausendl They should sit beon the saddle and stay with us till the cock crowed the third time. But, as if I would talk any longer! Set your knees to the pew-ends Hey Beat and break, snap and crack! Stamp on the floor Herr Cott^ bring water The king is sick. Water or wine wine!" just wine The king had grown pale, and put his hand to his forehead. Itwas nothing to him that the others were flaming red and reeled about. At bottom, perto
festivities.
my
fore us
50
THE CHARLES MEN

them deeply. What did
it
haps, he loved none of
matter
they called one another drunken? But never should any such thing be said of him, the
if
chosen of God.
"That's enough now, boys!" he

thrust his sword into the scabbard,
said, trying to
whereupon he
noticed that he had lost it. Instead, therefore, he very calmly stuck the weapon through the skirt of his coat, and walked with resolute step toward the
door.
The duke
seized the
unknown page by
the arm,
whispered, and
made
signs with his hands.
The
page hurried immediately after the king, opened

the door for him, and followed
him
upstairs.
"Never
king.
tered
Why
they?
small
wine again !" thought the "I could not bear if people said that I stutin my speech and held pages to my breast. should I after that be respected more than And wine does not taste so much better than beer. That depends on habit. A really wise
shall I taste
man drinks water." They went together along the stairs and corridors,
and came, at length, to his sleepingapartment. Here Wailenstedt and a couple of other high nobles were already waiting. Wailenstedt puffed up his lips. "Six o'clock in the morning," he began, "is the usual time for us to consider the affairs of government." " If it concerns a criminal matter, yes," answered

the king; "otherwise
will regulate
1
51
will receive
no counsel, but
and decide
as
seems
to
me
right."
He did not pick up the poker, as did his father. He was as wakefully solicitous about his dignity
as a
nobly-born young lady about court propriety. Smiling and bowing, he went straight up to the
gentlemen, so that they had to leave the room backwards.
"That
is
our return for setting a boy on the
throne," they dinned maliciously into the ears of
Wallenstedt.
The page, however, had already locked the door behind them with a subdued bang. That pleased the king. He stood leaning against the end of the high bed beside the casket in which his father had gathered together jewels and valuables of all sorts, and which had now been fetched up from the treasurevault known as the Elephant. "What is your name?" he asked the page.
"Why
don't you answer?"
The page
breathed hard, fumbling and plucking
at his clothes.
" Well, but answer me, boy You know your own name, I suppose. You stand almost with your back
!
to
me so that I cannot see you." The page now stepped forward

lifted
into the middle
of the room,
it
the peruke from his head, tossed

:
on the night-table, and answered

d'Klleville."
"My
name
is
Rhoda Rhoda
"
52
THE CHARLES' MEN

The
king saw that it was a very young girl with eyebrows. Her yellow hair was crisply curled with a curling-iron, anda lightly shaddark-pencilled
line trembled around her mouth. She sprang forward, threw her arms about his neck, and impetuously kissed him on the left cheek. For the first time the youth of sixteen lost his self-command. Flames rose before his eyes, his cheek became grayish-white, and his hands hung impotent. He only saw that the page's coat was unbuttoned over the breast, so that lace was hanging from it. She continued to hold him fast in her arms, and pressed a long kiss upon his mouth. He neither responded to it nor made resistance. He only raised his hands little by little and lifted her arms back over his head like a ring. Then, stammering,andbowing deeply and ceremoniously,
owed
he
moved
aside.
" Pardon, mademoiselle

foot, clicked his heels, and,
"
!
He
scraped with his
step,
moved
still
!
bowing again with each further away. " Pardon, madenot studied beforehand
moiselle, pardon
How thoroughly had she

herself any longer
every word she meant to say! But
now she remem-
bered nothing. She spoke at random and without

" Mercy,
sire!
knowing what she said. The good God may be excused

to the carpet.
if
He
punishes such presumption as mine."
She bent her knee
"

"
I
53
have seen you on horseback, sire; I have seen you from my window. In imagination I have seen you, before I made the long journey up here, have seen my hero, my Alexander." At once he went forward to her, took her under the elbows, and conducted her in precocious cavalier
fashion to a chair.
"
Not
so, not so. Sit, sit
She kept hold of his hand, and wrinkled her brow a little, as she looked him brightly in the eyes and then she burst into a ringing laugh of relief. "Ah, well, you are human after all, sire. Not a trace of the preacher. You are the first Swede I have met who understands that the eyes of virtue look inward and do not evilly squint at others. Your favorites drink and throw dice and pay attentions
to
it.
women without your saying You barely notice it. Let us

Perfume, the scent of her
hair,
anything about speak of virtue,

of a woman, tor-
sire.
tured him so violently that he was near to vomiting.
The
him
contact, the feel of her

like
warm hand, nauseated
touching
a rat or a corpse.
He
believed
himself offended and defiled both as the king, specially
chosen of God, and as a man in that a stranger had touched his clothes and face and hands. Another, and that a woman, had taken hold of him as of a prey, a conquered captive. "Fhe person who had touched him straightway became an enemy.
"
54 with
THE CHARLES MEN

whom
down
he wished to
in
fight,
whom
he wished to
strike
punishment of lese-majesty.
"When I was yet but a child," she continued, " my confessor fell in love with me. He wrung his
hands and strove with himself and babbled prayers, and I played with the madman and made a fool of him. Sire, how different you are from him You never strive with yourself. You are wholly and completely indifferent, sire. That is all. Virtue with you is so innate that" she laughed playfully "I do not know if I can even call it virtue." He tried to twist his hand free, and exerted his strength more and more. How had not the duke, the pages, and the warders dinned in his ears about lady wooers and pretty mamselles in the last weeks Was this, too, a game behind his back.? Should he, then, have no peace? " Pardon, mademoiselle " I know, sire, that for whole hours you can sit and turn over Tessin's etchings, and that you look
!
especially at pictures with tall

is
young
art
ladies.
That
which you ha\'e inherited from your noble lady grandmother; but will it always remain so? I am no dead representaperhaps only the esteem for
tion, sire."
he now tore himself such vehemence that at the same time he jerked Rhoda d'Elleville up from the chair,
free with
Though bowing constantly,
"No, you
are a live page, mademoiselle,
and the

page
I
55
order to go
down
into the chapel
and send
the comrades to the east anteroom."
She saw at once that the game was hopelessly lost, and the shadowed expression around her mouth became deeper and more weary. " The page must obey," answered she. When the king was left alone, he became again
at times there passed over of indignation. The unexpected adventure had chased the wine fumes trom his head, and he wished not to go to rest like a weakling after the pranks of the night, but to continue them hour after hour. He threw off his coat. In his shirt-sleeves, with
tranquil as before.
his
Only
thoughts
a flash
sword in hand, he went out to his comrades in the east anteroom. This room was sprinkled with dried stains of blood. The boards of the floor had been drenched and embrowned with pools of blood, and by the portraits on the wall, whose eves were poked out, hung lumps of hair and of long-congealed blood. In the room outside a lowing was heard. A calf was led in and brought forward to the middle ot
the floor.
The king bit his under lip so that it grew white, and with a single whistling blow struck oft'the calf's head. With blood oozing under his nails, he then threw the head through the broken window down on the passers-by.
56
THE CHARLES MEN
Outside the door, meanwhile, the duke whispered hurriedly with Rhoda d'Elleville. "So no one is likely to get my exalted brotherin-law out of his stiff-neckedness. Old Hjarne of the funny face talks of cooking a love potion, but that 's likely to be of little avail. Had he not inherited his father's coldness, he would with his bravado have become a Swedish Borgia. If he can't soon get to be a demi-god, he '11 become a devil. When such a bird does n't find flapping-room for its wings, it breaks apart the walls of its own nest. Hist! Some one's coming. Don't forget! This evening at nine at Mother Malin's. Have on hand some figs and raisins!" Behind them on the stairs came faithful old Hakon, leading two goats. He stood still, threw his hands aloft, and sighed anxiously: "What have they made of my young lord? Never has such a thing been seen in the home of Sweden's kings. Almighty God, have pity and give us yet greater misfortune than before, because the quiet that has now come upon us can be borne neither by the Swedes nor by such a prince!"
Midsummer
Sport
and near by, on a mossy stone, lazy and halfasleep, sat their brother. Axel Frederick, who today completed his twentieth year. His intended, the frightened little Ulrica, who had come to the place on a visit, bent down juniper twigs over the sieve and cut at them with her sickle. The little girls spread their hands to hold the twigs and help all they could, and melting snow dripped from the birches and alders. "Oh, oh, even grandfather has come out in this
heavenly weather," said Ulrica, pointing
the great house.
TWO
little girls
stood in a pasture with a sieve,
down
at
The little girls then began to shout and They took the sieve between them and went
the great house, while they
hop.
off to
swung the
so
sieve in time
and warbled:
The
birds
Come
of springtime^ they sing little goat-girls^ come!
well.
To-night
we
7/ have music and dance in the
dell.
On
the other side of the fence, where the neighthe last load of
bor's land began, Elias, the farm-servant, brought
down
water dripped from his

red oxen, Silverhorn
wood from the forest. The wooden shoes, and the two and Yeoman, had sprigs of
in:
rowan
in their
yoke
as a protection against witch-
craft. Elias, too,
began to join
58
The
THE CHARLES MEN

birds of springtime 'they sing so light.
Come.,
my
goat., oh.,
come!
the
The flowers will push through
turf to-night.
But with that he broke off and, bending over the Axel Frederick, "Powder smells ill shoot, and soot falls from the chimpeople when neys, so surely the thaw will last."
fence, said to
The
a
entry of the great house was covered with
snowy thatch of turf, where in summer a goat was wont to browse among the house-leeks and limewort. Below on the bench sat grandfather in his
grav frock coat with pewter buttons, and Ulrica led
forward the
him.
little girls
so that they might greet
They were
clad in basted-up smocks, which
were home-dyed with whortleberry juice, and every time the little girls curtsied, they made lilac circles on the wet steps of the stairs. Grandfather patted Ulrica on the cheek with the back of his hand. "You will grow up in time no doubt, little one, and become a help to Axel Frederick."
"If
that
I
were only quite certain of
it,
grandfather.
It is so big here,
and there is so much to manage am not accustomed to." "Ah, yes. And pity it is for Axel Frederick that
he lost both father and mother so early, and had no
one but his aunts and his old grandfather. But still we have looked after him in every way, and you, little one, must of course learn to take our place.
MIDSUMMER SPORT
59
Ah, dear
it
The
hardest thing
is
his frail health, the fine boy.
children,
God
be thanked for this day

"
of spring and for blessed years of peace! Grandfather felt of the cut juniper and praised
because
it
was moist, so that
it
would take up a
great deal of dust.
Behind him in the kitchen window stood the two mash of castoreum and laurel berries for a sick heifer. Both of them had plain black clothes and ice-gray hair combed back. "Why isn't Axel Frederick with you?" they asked of Ulrica. " Remember that for supper he is to have his favorite dish, honey-pudding dipped in syrup, and there is to be pork with shallot."
aunts, cooking a
*'
Yes, yes," said grandfather; "and then
let
the
servants have a rest for to-night."
Ulrica hastened into the maids' room, where the

servants were picking tow, but she had not taken
many
sion.
steps before her timid and* undeveloped
little
face again
took on an anxious and listening expres-
" ButjU Irica!" called grandfather. " Idon'tunderstand

this, Ulrica!
Come
here, Ulrica!"
She hung the bunch of keys she had just taken up behind the door-post in the entry, and went
out.
"Isn't that
grandfather.
rider
coming
full
off there?" asked

I've been spared
I
"Three months now

I
from
letters.
grow so
of dread when
get a
"
6o
letter.
THE CHARLES MEN Look at him, look at him! He

rider
digs his
paw
into his bag."
moment by the and delivered a sealed and folded paper. The aunts elbowed their way forward on both sides of grandfather, and reached him his spectacles, but his hands trembled so that he could hardly break the seal. They all wanted to read the writing at the same time, and Ulrica forgot her-
The
came
to a standstill a
steps,
self so far that she leaned
over grandfather's arm,
pointed along the

the others.
lines,
and spelled aloud before
At last she
in front
struck her hands together and stared
of her, while tears mounted to her eyes.

cried,
"Axel Frederick, Axel Frederick!" she

and ran over the sanded court
heaven's sake!
to the pasture. "
For
"What themischiefisthe
matter with you now?"
answered Axel Frederick, throwing away the withered fern which he was chewing. He had a full, pink face and an agreeable, careless voice. She did not come to a halt before she had taken
his
hand.
itself in readi-
"Axel Frederick, you don't know! There's an

order that the regiment shall hold
ness to gather under the
flag. It's
on account ofthe
Danes' invasion into Holstein." He followed her back to the great house, and she squeezed and squeezed his wrist.
MIDSUMMER SPORT
I
!
6i
" Dear children," stammered grandfather, " that
must needs live to see such a visitation We have war upon us." Axel Frederick stood and pondered. Finally he looked up and answered, "I won't
>
Grandfather tramped around on the steps, and about him the aunts went back and forth. "You are already enrolled, dear child. The only thing would be if we could perhaps hire some one
else."
"One can
surely
do that," replied Axel Freder-
ick indifferently.
went into the house, and Ulrica sprang up with her apron before her eyes, and threw herself on her bed. In the evening, when the honey-pudding was eaten, and they all sat around the table, grandfather wanted, as usual, to work on a hundredmesh net, but he trembled too much. " It has gone ill up there in Stockholm," said he.
the stairs
"Ballets, masquerades, streets covered with car-
He
comedians and conjurers of all sorts that has been the daily food with our new King Christina.' I 've heard all about it. When the money ran out, he began to give away the crown jewels. Now our gracious lord must spell out another lesson." Axel Frederick moved back his candlestick, and sat leaning indolently forward with his elbows on
pets,
'
62
THE CHARLES MEN
the table, while the aunts and Ulrica, her eyes red with weeping, cleared the table. Grandfather nodded
and coughed and went on with
his talk.
"In
fellows
all
these years of peace there has been noth-
ing but greed and extortion, and the very worst
have pushed themselves nearest to the these fatted oxen are behaving ill, I fancy. Ha-ha You should but have seen the old times when grandfather was young, and was called to the nobles' banner. The king's standard that was kept in the royal wardrobe was unfurled, and the horse with the kettledrum was equipped in its long saddle-cloth with crowns in the corner, and then we assembled in our tight, braided coats, while the trumpets began to play." Grandfather took the yarn and tried to tie it, but threw it aside again and rose. "You should only have seen. Axel Frederick. Even in the moonlight, as we stood drawn up on the icy ground and sang psalms before the advance, I recognized the Narkingers' red uniforms with white facings, which were like striped tulips; and the vellow Kronobergers, and the gray boys from Kalmar, and the gay blue Dalecarlian regiment, and the West Gotlanders, who were yellow and black. That was a feast to behold, but quiet as in the Lord's house. Well, there have come other men and other coats. Everything now is to be severe and simple."
throne.
Now
MIDSUMMER SPORT
There was
silence in the
63
room
awhile.
if to
After that Axel Frederick said, as
himself,
"If my togs and gear were in good order, there might be merry times in a camp." Grandfather shook his head. "You are frail in health, Axel Frederick, and it will be hard to march down through the whole kingdom to Denmark." "Yes, march I won't, but I might, though, have Elias with me and the brown long-wagon." " That you may of course have any time, but you have no cloth tent with stakes and ridge-tree and pegs and whatever else there ought to be now." "Elias could very well purchase that for me on
the way. As to uniform, I 'm passably well off." " Let 's see now, let 's see now." Grandfather be-
came eager and toddled off over the floor to open the wardrobe. " Ulrica, come here, Ulrica, and read how it stands there in His Royal Majesty's" (he bowed) "edict which lies on the table! Here we have the cloak with brass buttons, lined with smooth Swedish baize. That is right. And the vest is here, too. Read now about the coat!" Ulrica trimmed the tallow candle, and sat down
at the table with
hands over her brow, while she
read monotonouslv, spelling out the words, in a
loud voice: "Coat of blue unstretched cloth, red

collar, lined
with madder-red baize, twelve brass
buttons
in front, four
above and three below the
64
THE CHARLES MEN

on each
side, three
pocket-flap, and one button
small on each sleeve."
"Eight
twelve
that's right.
Now
we come
to the breeches."
"Breeches of good buckskin or deerskin with

three buttons covered with chamois."
"They
to getting
are fearfully chafed.
There
will
soon be
eyes in the seat. However, Elias could very well see
you a new pair on the way. But the hat and gloves. Where are the hat and gloves?"
"They
're
lying in the chest in the entry," said
Axel Frederick.
Ulrica read
:
" Gloves with large gauntlets of yel-
low shamozed ox-leather, stiffened and reinforced,

with the grip of buck- or goat-skin. Shoes of good
Swedish wax-leather with straps cut in one piece. Bottom of an insole and a middle-sole. Shoebuckles of brass." "The shoes and wax-leather boots are here, and are fairly good. You can have my spurs. You shall be a fine-looking Swedish soldier, my dear boy." "Neckcloth: one of black Swedish wool-crepon two-and-a-half feet long and a full nine inches wide with a leather cord half a yard long at each end, and two of white." "That Elias must get for you at Orebro." "Pistols: two pairs. Holsters of black leather
with tops of gathered broadcloth."
"
You must take
mine.
And my
broadsword
is
in
MIDSUMMER SPORT
65
excellent condition with calf-skin sheath and sword-
band of elk-leather. That 's how a Swedish warrior ought to look. We must now think, too, of equipping Elias and putting in haversacks and all." Axel Frederick stretched his arms. " It 's surely the best thing for me to go up and lie down and take a good rest beforehand." There was now noise and commotion in the great house. There was nailing and battering every day, there was flaming and sputtering in the fireplace, and by night the candle was burning. The one room that staved dark was Axel Frederick's. On the last night no one but Axel Frederick went to rest, and when the dawn had come on so far that all lights could be put out, the aunts waked him and gave him something warm to drink in bed with drops oi aqua for tis^ for they had heard that he coughed in the night.
When
he came
down
into the hall, the others
were gathered there already, even the maids and the men-servants, and the table was spread for all in common. They ate without saying a single word,
but when the meal was over, and they arose, the Bible was brought to grandfather, and Ulrica read
with choked voice.
father clasped
his
When
she had ceased, grandhands and spoke with eyes
closed " L.ike as

I
my
forefathers have done, even so will

lay
now
in the
hour of departure
my
hands upon
66 you,
are
THE CHARLES MEN

my daughter's son, and bless you, for many my years, and who knows when the hour-glass
Most High, I invoke from my lowly dwelling, that He may lead you to honor, and that the heavy trials which await us may only
has run out? God, the
exalt our little nation to be greater
and more glo-
rious."
Axel Frederick stood at the corner of the table, fingering and balancing the plate, until from outside was heard a clatter, as the brown long-wagon was driven up. All now went out, and Axel Frederick sat up beside Elias, wrapped in grandfather's wolf-sk-in coat and much heated, for in the spring weather the water was dripping from roof and tree.
" Here
is
the butter firkin," said the aunts,
"and
here the bread sack.
Hearken now,
Elias! In the
seat-box are the curd-cake and the flask with the
aqua for tis. If the strain and peril are too hard, dear
Axel Frederick, never forget that the way home

short."
is
But grandfather pressed

stuck his hands
in
among them and
down
tied
in the
back of the wagon.
"Is the chest
on right?
And
let 's
see
now!
Here is the sprinkling-brush and the whisk-cloth and here we have the fodder-bag and the scraper and the water-bottle. That 's as it ought to be. The lead-mould, bullet-cutter, and casting ladle are in
the chest."
"
MIDSUMMER SPORT
Ulrica stood behind
ticing her.
67
them without any one no-
"Axel Frederick, when it go out some evening and bind joy-threads and sorrow-threads on the rve, to see which has grown highest the next morning "Now it's all ready," broke in grandfather, who had not heard her; "and God be with both vou and
She
said very softly,
I
is
summer,
shall
Elias!"
Round about on
the side of the road stood the
farm-folk and the day-laborers. But just as Elias raised his whip, Axel Frederick laid his hand over the reins. "This journey mav turn out ill," said he. "Still it would look badly," answered Elias, "to unharness and unsaddle now." Axel Frederick stuck his hand back into the sleeve of his coat, and between the lines of silent
people the wagon rolled away.
The weeks
was
a
passed, and the trees blossomed. It
slow march with the Narke regiment through
the wilds of Sweden, and Axel Frederick sat in his

coat and slept beside Elias,
warm on
the brow and
with his gloves of goat's-hair very moist.

fallen
little
way from Landskrona, the brown long-wagon had

behind the regimental baggage, and the horse
stood in the blaze of the sun, and browsed beside
68
THE CHARLES MEN

man
fell
the ditch. Both masterand

to shoulder.
asleep, shoulder
The
horse whisked at a gad-fly, the water purled
in the ditch,
and
couple of vagrants threw their

;
bad language
sit in
at the sleepers
but they continued to

a gallop a
same untroubled repose. Then there came behind them at

the
shab-
bily dressed rider with a large flaxen peruke,
who
the
pulled
reins,
up his horse beside the wagon. Elias nudged Axel Frederick, and picked up
"Yes, drive on, Elias!
I
but Axel Frederick, unwilling to open his
eyes, only said:
need to get
a good rest before my hardships." Elias gave him another nudge in the side. " Rouse yourself, rouse yourself! " he whispered.
Drowsily Axel Frederick opened one eye but that instant he grew blood-red over all his face, he rose, and saluted from the middle of the
in
it
wagon.
was the eighteen-year-old king himself. Yet what a transformation! Was this majestic and commandrecognized at once from pictures that
ing youth, who had
that a few
He
grown up so quickly, the same

calves
and broke windows? He was not above middle height, and his face was small; but the brow was high and noble, and from the large deep-blue eyes beamed an enchanting radiance. " The gentleman should throw
ofi^
months before beheaded
his coat, so
MIDSUMMER SPORT
that
I
69
caninspect his uniform," he said deliberately.

earth
is
"The
green long since."
Axel Frederick panted and struggled to get off his grandfather's accursed pelisse,and the king surveyed coat and buttons, fingered them, pulled at them, and counted. "That is fair," said he with a precociously earnest expression;
tirely
"and now we new men."

wagon wheel.
shall all
become enlooking
Axel Frederick stood dazed and

fixedly at the
erect,
Then the king added slowly, " In a few days we may perhaps have the fortune to stand before the
have been told that in battle nothing is as hard as thirst. If thegentleman should sometime meet me in the tumult of the strife, let him step forward and lend me his drinking-flask." The king once more gave his horse the spurs, and Axel Frederick sat down. He had never loved or hated, never been worried or carried away with enthusiasm, and he pondered the king's words. The pelisse came to lie between him and Elias. When at dusk the wagon clattered into Landskrona, the regiment had already pitched their tents. Axel Frederick looked about for the covered drinking-table of which he had dreamed. Instead he found only taciturn comrades, who pressed one another's hands, and looked away in crowds across the Straits of Oresund, where the waves were rushing under
I
enemy.
70
THE CHARLES MEN
the cloudy summer heavens, and where flags and pennons fluttered over the forest of masts of the Swedish fleet. Next morning Elias put the horse and wagon into a barn, because the Crown had taken over all vessels, and only on the day after the fleet had sailed could he follow on a fishing-boat to Zeeland. He remained standing on the shore, almost but in the water, when the monstrous anchors, dripping with mud, were hoisted up by the creaking cables. On mast after mast rose the swelling sails, and the sunlight glittered on the lanterns and glass windows of the poops. The billows danced and shot by, mirroring in flaming coils the lofty, swaying forms of the galleons, which with their laurel garlands and tridents pointed out across the sea to the unexplored land of wonder, toward adventure and
achievement.
The
masses of cloud,
after resting
long on the waves, had sunk into the sea, and the
atmosphere was blue as in a saga. Then the king forgot himself; the boy in his soul conquered so that he began to clap his hands. He stood in the poop just in front of the lantern, and around him the gray-haired warriors of his father's time smiled, and also began to clap. Even His Excellency Piper sprang up the ladder as nimbly as a ship's-boy. There were no longer anv old and decrepit men or greedy bickerers; it was an army of
youths.
MIDSUMMER SPORT
As
if at
71
music and drums began to sound at the same moment, swords flew from their sheaths, and, rising above Admiral Anckarstierna's words through the speaking-trumpet, a hymn was sung from the nineteen warships and the hundred smaller vessels. Elias recognized Axel Frederick, who sat on grandfather's pelisse, hemmed in by the cargo of gabions, sacks for earth, and trench entanglements. But when Elias saw that he, too, slowly rose and drew his blade like the others, and saw how the fleet gradually vanished on the water, he passed his hand over his eyes, shaking his head. He returned toward the barn, muttering, "How
a mysterious sign,
will
I
he look after himself with his fragile health
till
can catch
up?"
A few days afterward Elias came alone with his longwagon on the Smaland roads. Peasant women, who recognized him from the time he had driven past
with the sleeping
and asked
officer, set their entry doors ajar, was true that the Swedes had landed at Zeeland, and that the king had thanked God on his knees for the victory, but had stammered from embarrassment. He nodded assentingly without replying. Day after day he drove northward, step by step, walking with the reins the whole way beside the wagon, whichwas covered with a piece of an old sail.
if it
72
THE CHARLES MEN

When
at last,
one evening, he came to the hedge in front of the great house, all immediately recognized by the noise that it was the brown longwagon, and the horse neighed. Amazed, they went to the window, grandfather himself came out on the steps, and Ulrica stood in the middle of the
courtyard.
Elias walked as slowly as ever with the reins in
his hands,
itself.
and
at the steps the
horse stood
still
of
Then
coffin,
Elias
carefully
drew the
sail
from the
wagon, and there stood

the
lid.
I
a long, narrow, nailed-up
with a yellowed wreath of beech-leaves on
"
brought him home with me," said Elias."
He
received a shot in the breast as he sprang forward
and handed His Royal Majesty
his drinking-flask."
Gunnel the Stewardess

a vault of the fortress at Riga, Gunnel the stewIN ardessj an old woman of eighty, sat and spun.
Her long arms were veinous and sinewy, her breast was lean and flat like an old man's. Some thin white wisps of hair hung down over her eyes, and she had a cloth knotted about her head like a round
cap.
The spinning-wheel whirred, and a trumpeter lad

on the stone floor in front of the fire. " Grandma," said he, " can't you sing something while you are spinning? I 've never heard you do otherwise than nag and scold." For a brief moment she turned towards him her tired and wickedly chilling eyes. " Sing? Perhaps of your mother, who was set on a wagon and carried to the Muscovites? Perhaps of your father, whom they hanged at the chimney of the house on the bridge? Curse will I the night when I was born, and myself will I curse and every human being I have met. Name me a single one who is not even worse than his repute."
lay
"If you sing a song, you ma, and I should be so glad

this
'11
be cheerful, grand-
to
have you cheerful,

is
evening."
"
a
He whom
you
see playing or laughing
only
all.
master of deception. Misery and shame
is
74
THE CHARLES MEN

it is
sake of our sins and our baseness Saxons have come and besieged our that now the citv. Why don't you go in the evening and do your duty on the wall as at otherwhiles, instead of lying here in your laziness ?"
and
for the
"
to
Grandma,
I
can't
you say
a single pleasant
word
me as
go
"
?
"Thrash you
and bent with
should,
if I
I
were not so infirm
my
years that
countenance to heaven. Do tell your fortune? Do they not Shall I tell you that the crooked brows signifies an early death?
into the future, but as far as
I
no more can lift my you not want me to

call
me
the Sibyl?
line
I
over your eyefind only evil
see years ahead

I
see
and low purposes. You are worse than I, and I am worse than my mother, and all that which is born is worse than that which dies." He arose from the floor and stirred the logs. "I will tell you, grandma, wherefore I sat myself by you this evening, and wherefore I asked of you a kindly word. The old governor-general
has ordered to-day that before the following night
all
women, young and

Those who
aged, sound and sick, shall
go
their way, so as not to
consume the bread of

in ten years
the men.
death.
refuse shall be punished with
How
can you,
who
have never
to the
gone further than across the castle courtyard

storehouse,
now be
able to range about in
wood and
waste in the midst of the winter cold?"
GUNNEL THE STEWARDESS
75
She laughed and trod the spinning-wheel faster and faster. "Haha! I have been waiting for this after I tended so faithfully the noble lord's storeroom and all that was his. And you, Jan? Aren't you worried at having no one any longer to bake for you at the oven and make your bed on the folding-bench?
What
other feeling
is
there in children? Praised be

at the
God, be God,
the scourge of
Who
his
end
casts us all
under
hair.
His wrath!"
hands about
his curly
Jan clasped
" Go,
I tell
till
brown
"Grandma, grandma!"
you, and
my
it
tow,
let me sit in peace and spin open the door myself and go out of
to be quit of this earthly life!"
He
The
the
took a few steps forward toward the spin-
ning-wheel, but thereupon turned about and went
out of the vault.
spinning-wheel whirred and whirred, until
burned out. Next morning, when Jan the trumpeter came back, the vault stood empty. The siege was long and severe. After divine service had been held, all the women went out of the city in the snowy days of February, and the feeble or sick were set upon litters and wagons. All Riga became a cloister for men, who had nothing to give to the flocks of begging women that now and then stole out in front of the wall. The men had scarcely bread for their own necessities, and the starved
fire
76
THE CHARLES MEN

stalls,
horses tore each other to pieces in the
or de-
voured the mangers, and gnawed great holes in the wooden walls. Smoke hung over the burned suburbs, and at night the soldiers were often wakened by warning tocsins, and took down their broadswords from the ceiling. In the evenings, however, when Jan the trumpeter came home to the vault which he and his grandmother had had as a living-room, he almost always found the folding-bench made up as a bed, and a bowl with mouldy meat beside it on a chair. He was ashamed of saying anything about it to the others, but he was really terrified. He believed that his grandmother had perished in the snowdrifts, and that now, remorseful over her former hardness, she went about again without rest. In his fright he shook as with ague, and many a night he preferred to sleep hungry in the snow on the wall. After he had strengthened himself with prayer, however, he became easier, and finally he felt himself more surprised and anxious when he now and then found the folding-bench untouched and the chair empty. Then he would seat himself at the
spinning-wheel and, treading
listen to the familiar
it
very softly, would
whirring which he had heard
dav
after
day since
his birth.
Now it happened one morning that the governorgeneral, the celebrated Erik Dahlberg, a
man of
with
seventy-five, heard violent shooting.
He rose
GUNNEL THE STEWARDESS
77
impatient anger from his sketches and fortification models of wax. As a reminder of his bright youthful
excursions in the service of beauty, splendid
etchings of Roman ruins
hung on the wall, but his formerly mild countenance had become wrinkled
with melancholy, and an expression of harshness stiffened around the narrow, compressed, almost
white
lips.
He
adjusted his great spliced wig, and
tremblingly ran his nails over his thin moustache.
When he went down the stairs, he struck heavily on the stones with his cane, and said "Ah, we Swedes, we blood-kindred to the Vasa kings, who in their old age could only find fault and quarrel and at the last sat in their own rooms afraid we have in our soul a black seed, of the dark, from which with the years is raised a branching tree
:
filled
with the bitterest gall-apples."
He
became
bitterer
and harsher
finally
in spir.it the farat the wall,
ther he went, and
when he
stood
he spoke to no one.
Several battalions had been drawn
up with
flags
and music, but afterwards the shooting had quieted, and through the gate returned scattered bands of weary and bleeding men who had just repulsed the enemy's attack. Last of them all, came a thin and feeble old man, who had himself a red sabre wound on the breast, but who painfully carried in his arms in front of him a wounded boy. Krik Dahlberg raised his hand over his brows to
78
look.
THE CHARLES MEN

Was
not the fallen boy Jan the trumpeter, the ? He recognized him by his curly
lad from the castle
brown
hair.
At the arch of the gate the exhausted bearer sank down against the stone pillar, and remained there sitting with his wound and with the dead boy on his knee. Some soldiers, bending down to examine the
wound,
a
slit
up the bloody
shirt
above the
breast.
"What!" woman!"
they shouted, and stepped back." It's
at her face.
Wondering, they bent down still lower to look She had sunk her head sidewise against the wall, and the fur cap slid down, so that the white
locks of her hair
fell
forward.
"
!
Gunnel the stewardess, the Sibyl She breathed heavily and opened her dulling eyes. "I did n't want to leave the boy alone in this world of evil, but after I had put on men's clothes and served night and day among the others on the
's
" It
wall,
thought that
was eating
man's bread with-
out wrong."
Soldiers and officers looked dubiously at Erik Dahlberg, whose commands she had transgressed. He continued to stand there, reserved and harshly
gloomy, while the stick in his hand trembled and tapped on the stone paving. Slowly he turned to the battalion and the thin lips moved. "Lower your colors!" he said.
"
French
Mons
AHIDE-COVEREDfieldwagon had stuck in

one of the swamps of Poland, and the horse had already been unhitched. On the wagon stood a young man who had just come to the army to work his way up. His comrades called him French Mons, because as tutor he had followed some distinguished lords to France, and had there filled his chest with all sorts of odd things. Captain Olof Oxehufvud and several subalterns and soldiers waited alongside in the mud, and the snowstorm
.
struck them in the face.

chest must be left behind," said Oxehufvud. French Mons opened the chest, and pulled out
as
"
The wagon and
much
as he
could carry.
"What
a pied
dressing-gown with
all
that nee-
dlework and tassels!" exclaimed Oxehufvud and

the subalterns.
And
false calves
's
it
" That
"What miserable And a bonnet!" cadeau from ma

!
little
slippers!
"Kick
"
From mama."
into the slush!"
"Look at the little peruke!" "And the medium peruke!" " And the great spliced peruke
Oxehufvud could now
but took him by the
leg.
"
!
control himself no longer,
"
8o
THE CHARLES MEN

" Kick the
damned
stuff into the slush,
say
blonde countenance of French The Mons flamed up, and he struck his hand on his
delicate
sword.
"Master Captain, such an import "Such an important person as you can freely hold up the march, you think?" " No. Such a victorious army, I would say, surely
need not go in shabby clothes, with dressing-gowns from the time of King Orre." "Stuff and nonsense! Little schoolmaster Con!
"
summate
*'
ass !"
treats
The captain
me
like a menial, yet I

in
have
had education, have travelled
France, yes, have
stood eye to eye with Vauban himself." " Well, what did Vauban say ? "
"What
did he say?" " Just so." " 'Get out! he said, for
'
it
was
at his
own
gate,
way." Get down from the wagon and be quick about it! Come here, two of you fellows, and take this beggar in lady's chair style!" French Mons rolled up the slippers and wigs in the dotted dressing-gown and took it on his back,
I
and
was
in his
"
Lord
Lord
while he held a lorgnette before his eyes.
When he had been carried to the bank, Oxehufvud stood in front of him, tall and slim, with brilliant red cheeks and small dark moustaches.
FRENCH MONS
8i
" Hark now, monsieur, what do you want in the field? Do you want to work up?" "Though not of noble rank, I aspire to it. Who knows if perhaps even I may not sit some time with a certificate of nobility in my pocket?" "You may ennoble yourself in fools' hell! In this army no one says a word about nobility, but every one must work his way up the best he may." Oxehufvud had now abused him so long as leader that his comradely heart began to thaw, and he added grumblingly in a somewhat milder tone, "Behave yourself gallantly, and you may get your officer's commission to start with We have already broken so many Swedish dandies of your sort and made men of them. There by that little wood you see a large house with a white stairway. Since we are in all no more than five-and-twenty men, I can't afford to leave you a single soldier. Reconnoitre and spy diligently on the enemy, so that no one falls on us from the rear!" Oxehufvud marched off with his little band, and French Mens went up to the house with his bundle on his back. No human being was visible, and he stationed himself irresolutely in the lee of the wall. He was cold and wet through, but above all he was troubled by the dirt and mud on his boots. Would he not be able to keep equally good watch from one of
!
82
the windows?
erlet
for.
THE CHARLES MEN
A well-made
and
a foot-mufF
bed with a silken covwas exactly what he longed
Transversely under the house went a dark carriage-door, and thither with great caution he slunk
along the
alertness.
wall.
When
he had dried
his
moist lor-
gnette, he leaned forward and lookedin withstealthy
There was
stamping and
clattering,
and he
dis-
tinguished two gleaming eyes.
With throbbing heart
he took a step back and drew his sword. A black horse rushed out and ran back and forth in the
courtyard, while
it
threw the snow high
in the air
with its hind feet. " I won'tcatch that black fellow," thought French
on such a wild horse, the dead owner will rise from the swamp, jump up behind, and pull him from the saddle. They tell of such things in the evening by the camp-fire." He threatened the horse with his sword, and went in, pushing the door open on the other side so that the light would be better. He saw now that the door to the house was walled up. Snorting and stamping, the horse came back, but French Mons chased him out again. Then he went out and called up to the window. A gray-haired serving-woman stuck out her head. " Does a friend of King Stanislaus or of the Saxon drunkard dwell here?" he asked.
soldier sits
Mons. "If a
FRENCH MONS
" Here dwells an old recluse,
83
who
is
no one's
enemy and no one's friend." " Good. Then he cannot deny

Swedish soldier."
shelter to a frozen
Theserving-womanvanishedand finally returned time with a ladder, on which he climbed in. The room was large, and the ugly but clean wooden chairs stood in a stiff row along the bare walls. When he chanced to push back one of the chairs with his scabbard, the serving-woman hasafter a
proper place. and curled hair, came and went without saying a word. As soon as one got a few steps behind, she ran anxiously forward to the other's side. They rubbed against each other and groped with their long fingers, and though it was still bright daylight, they carried two
it
tened at once to
move
back to
its
Two girls dressed in
blue, with pale faces
lighted lamps.
When
from
his
the serving-woman had rubbed the
mud
boots and sufficiently dried the wet places
that the soles had
made on
the fioor, she quietly

to the next
and
carefully
opened the door
room.
"Don't walk too roughly!" she whispered. There stood a man of middle age in a dressinggown and with the most impudent and pointed nose, but no one had ever worn a more elegantly curled
peruke, and on his white fingers gleamed rings with
jewels.
French
Mons set down
his bundle,
and eyed him
84
THE CHARLES MEN

Much
bowed
pleased with his vener-
with his lorgnette.

with his arms, and
able exterior, he thereupon
made
wide gesture
to the floor.
"My
humbly
intentions are courteous," he said,

I
"and
beg the favor of knowing with what nobleman I have the good fortune to speak." "Sit down, my good sir. I am nothing but a forgotten old recluse, but since you are a man of quality, I shall at once explain various things that may seem remarkable." The two gentlemen sat down stiff and straight with hands on their knees. "Formerly I was a merry companion, and my coat of brocade was the talk of all Warsaw, but on my thirtieth birthday, when I sat drinking with my comrades, I lifted my glass and spoke somewhat in this fashion: friends, with every year your eyes become harder and your hearts more shrunken. One believes in King Stanislaus of the whitecheeks, and the other in King August with the big belly. Afterwards you forge your plots accordingly, and seek for appointments and rewards. I will not go to the grave with the horrible recollection that each of my brothers was at the last a Cain, I set friend-
My
ship
much
higher than love, because
it is
bond
I
exclusively between souls, and therefore to-day
say unto you farewell, while
we
are
all still
young.
Of me you
such as
I
shall
never hear anything further, but
now
see you,
you
shall still
go about me
FRENCH MONS
in
85
my room
I sit
before
my
eyes and keep
me company,
when
will
alone and old.
When
I
the serving-woman
talking with
outside the door hears that

say:
prattle half aloud, she

is
'Now
after
the old
man
the
friends of his youth.'"
you had so bade them farewell?" "Then I went home and had the door walled up. My servants have to get themselves out and in as best they may."
" With a host of such delicate sensibilities a guest
will surely get
"And
on well."
"Get on
their
well?
What
are
you thinking of?

the
My
twin daughters
who walk about
room
here with
lamps are insane. Their mother was an abducted nun. No, a guest would not get on in the least." "You mean, perhaps, that my coming disturbs." "Ah well, I won't exactly say that. But there are
ghosts here."
His
"
I
nostrils rose at the corners,

his
and he got up
and rubbed
hands in consider it my duty
satisfaction.
as host to tell the truth as
There is a dead lackey who goes about again, and whose name is Jonathan. He stands in window-recesses and behind doors in brown livery with black braid. His servant zeal so
well first as last.
sticks to the
poor fellow even
after
death that he
least ex-
watches over and serves guests when they

pect
are
it.
Fortunately guests are rare here. Tell me,

a
vou
count?"
86
THE CHARLES MEN
"I? No." "Are you a baron?" "No, I 'm not a baron yet." "Are you not at least a plain nobleman?" "Is it my lord's intention to insult?" French Mons flushed with embarrassment. "The certificate has been my dearest dream," he thought, "and would to God I carried it already in my coat pocket. Then no one any longer should cry, Little schoolmaster!' Then it should be: 'I sawthe marks of nobility on that man long before he got his cer'
"
tificate.'
"How can
old."
such a simple question
wound you?"
is
exclaimed the recluse, with yet more enjoyment.
"Of course
am
noble.
My family
thing.
extremely
good.
all
"That would be another Though Jonathan had a

that, he
is
That's very
Christian burial and
such an out-and-out aristocratic lackey

all
that he starts
sorts of malicious tricks as
soon
as
he has before him a parvenu or a plebeian."
French
Mons
stroked his small moustache with

finger
the nail of his
little
and swung
his lorgnette
uncomfortably.
"Is
my
lord a connoisseur of Syracusan
wine?"
he asked.
"No."
"I too think much more of
gnac.
a glass
of Fronti-
My
favorite dish
is
ragout with mushrooms,
"
FRENCH MONS
87
though I shall never speak ill of a hache of lamb with thyme. Much in this part of the world depends on the sauce. Oh, I do not long to be back home with oatmeal and pitchv darkness." " Pitch darkness? Are you thinking of the sum-
mer
"
nights?
They
are bright."
"And
winter evenings are bright, too, for then
you have snow. If you are afraid of pitch darkness, never travel southward again! Have you in your land any great artists and scholars?" "We have not and never shall have." "You do not over-value your countrymen."
have seen a little of the great world, my lord. I have travelled in France a good two months, my lord. I have even been a whole evening with ro'i
"
I
Soleiiy
"You? Have you been with Louis XIV?" "That I have at the theatre though I only
got a wretched standing-place
in
the parterre. Since
Augustus there has not lived so majestic a sovereign. Only look at his style of bowing!" "The king of Sweden is a man, too." "That he is, for he makes us noticed in foreign countries, but how poor for all that!" " Mightily poor in Warsaw lately. When Stanislaus stepped into the church for coronation with
his
spouse, who
is
always frightened and tremulous,
he not only got as a present from the Swedes the
88
THE CHARLES MEN
newly wrought crown, sceptre, apple, sword, ermine, belt, and shoes, but also a banner, tapestries on the church walls, the plates on the table, corona-
and soldiers who and kept guard and fired the jubilation salute at the last he thanked His Excellency Piper and Are you poor yourself?" kissed his hand. "Poor? I?" French Mons thought of the two wretched Charles-pieces that were sewed under the lining of his coat, and were all he possessed, but he rapped his lorgnette on the table and hastened to say " My
tion
money
to be scattered about,
expenses are enormous
and play amuses me

my
purse."
never go without ten louis d'or in
"Will you lend me five louis d'or?" French Mons looked up at the ceiling.
"Just to-day, unluckily, I forgot my purse in a coat on my tent-post. But 1 shall deem myself happy to have the trifle sent you at the first opportunity. My lord, do not regard us awkward Swedes as Rtij grands seigneurs. HowevGT high I mount, still Mons always peeps out between the seams." "You were mightily awkward lately at our Polish election, when Arvid Horn sat with his note-book and registered all who voted against the Swedish orders, and when our land-marshal broke his staff in despair. But now consider my house as your own. The tobacco pipe lies by the flask of scented water, the scented water on the powder-box, the
FRENCH MONS
89
powder-box on the tobacco keg, the tobacco keg on the commode. That you must hunt out as time
goes on."
With these words he took up a leather-bound book and sat down to read. " I beg you to trouble yourself no further," answered French Mons, looking at him sidelong through his lorgnette with wakening mistrust. Within his soul he thought: "Just wait till I'm
sitting with
my
certificate in
my
big state carriage

is
Then
it will be: *That gentleman made knight, Magnus Gabriel.'" The two girls every now and then
our newly
pattered past
through the room, and threw the light of their lamps upon him, and every time he rose and bowed. As the recluse meanwhile continued to read and gradually appeared to forget his presence entirely, he finally took his bundle and went back into the outer room. "It's getting dark," he said to the serving-woman, " and I am too tired to keep company longer." " We have arranged the gentleman's bed here to
the
left in
the great
hall.
That
is
the onl v
room
that
has a fire."
was whitewashed and long, with inhosand a couple of rough folding-tables. Just by the door stood a bed with curtains of Holland linen. The old woman lighted the four candles in the sconces and left him alone.
hall
The
pitable rows of chairs
90
THE CHARLES MEN

Chilled, he looked about
him and
laid his
sword
on the
little
table.
Then he unpacked
of the candles he blew out,
Three and on them hung the

his bundle.
peruke and the medium peruke and the
spliced peruke, but with the fourth he threw the
under the bed and in the window recesses and set it back in the socket. "Impudent pack!" he muttered. "I'd rather have stood outside in the snow, but since I 'm now inside here, it 's a matter of keeping awake, peeping about, and going often to the window to listen and
light
then
spy."
He tried to lock the door from inside, but it was without both bolt and key. After he had worked in vain for a long time to get off his wet boots, whose musty smell annoyed him, he put on his dressinggown and lay down At times he heard
under the
in his
boots on the bed.
a muffled
stamping and snortit
ing from the wild horses in the carriage entrance

floor of the hall, but after a while
grew
more
quiet,
and he began
to think that the candle

all
did not light sufficientlv, because
the corners
and recesses were dark. He raised his lorgnette, sharpened his gaze, and turned his eyes on all sides,
but otherwise lay quite motionless. Then he saw by the door-jamb close behind the
curtain at the head of his bed a
tall,
thin lackey in a
brown coat with black
braid.
A cramp-like dread caught
him by the
throat, he
FRENCH MONS
grew dizzy, but he thought: "It
is
91
only the good

I
God who
wishes to try
me
because
am^ dreaming
of distinctions and Softly and almost imperceptibly he caught hold of both sides of the bed so as to control his shuddering bodv, and then he stuck his right leg out
certificates,"
between the curtains. "Jonathan," said he, "pull off my boot!" The lackey grinned so that his dark mouth twisted itself up to his ears, but he did not move from his place. French Mens chattered his teeth, but he did not
draw back his "Jonathan,

nobility?"
leg.
is
this the
way you serve

worse, and
folk of the
The
lackey grinned
still
made
a dis-
dainful gesture of refusal with his hand.
French Mons now understood that the lackey had seen through his deception and treated him as a parvenu and a plebeian, and his terror grew so great that he panted and moaned softly, but his leg
he held continually outstretched.
"Pull off my boot, Jonathan!" His voice was now barely a whisper. The lackey rubbed his hands on his hips and grinned, but remained standing by the door-jamb. At that moment the horse down below in thecarriage entrance neighed long and piercingly, and far off in the snowstorm many horses answered.
92
THE CHARLES MEN

French Mons threw himself from the bed. "I 'm neglecting my duty," he cried. "That's
the
enemy!"
sprang forward to the table to grasp his
He
steps
sword, but the lackey walked beside him with long
and stared him in the eyes. again grew paralyzed and stood still. Meanwhile the lackey took the sword with one
Then he
hand, stretched out the other over the candlestick,
and with two fingers high and then drew burning candle.
lifted the great spliced

it
wig on
as an extinguisher
over the
heaven!" stammered French into Thy house and have rather pampered myself and played with all sorts of vanity, but help me for this one time so that 1 do not neglect my duty and become a disin
"Good God
Mons. "I have seldom gone
grace!
Then Thou may'st punish me
eternally."
Neighings were heard ever nearer and nearer, and the wild horse rushed stamping and snorting from its retreat. Then French Mons bent down with his clenched hands over his head, and threw himself in the dark
upon
the lackey.
"You spook
of Beelzebub! " he shouted.

all
fell
He
pulled the sword to him and struck on

to the floor.
sides in the dark, and chairs
He
could nowhere lay hold on Jonathan, but
at last
he struck
his
hands against the
wall,
and the door
FRENCH MONS
93
opened. The two sisters with their lamps and their pale, wide-eyed countenances entered in only their chemises, without the wit to feel any embarrassment about it. They only rubbed against each other
and stared
at the stranger
who had waked them

he did not give
with his racket.
On
this occasion
himself time to bow, but shoved up the window
and hopped to the ground. In his dressing-gown, with sword in hand, he ran along the house and heard behind him a harsh voice from the window, but he did not know whether it was that of the recluse or of Jonathan, or whether they were both one and the same. " I said that you were a fool," cried the voice, " a great fool, a fool without peer, and I wanted to be even with you. But if the horsemen get to see you, and there is a hand-to-hand fight, my house, my home, my nook will be an ash-heap before the cock crows." Without looking back, French Mons sprang in
among
the trees, thinking
all
the while:
"Now's
then
the chance for an officer's commission! the certificate, the certificate

"
!
And
The moonlight shone through

shadows.
self
the snowstorm,
flit
and he saw Polacks with waving plumes
by like
When
they came too near, he threw him-
down
last
beside a heap of twigs or set himself be-
hind a tree trunk.
At
he discovered an old snow-covered bar-
"
94
ricade.
THE CHARLES MEN

Behind the logs
a soldier rose
and asked
in
a whisper:
"Who
with
goes there?"
"God
enemv
us!
Good comrade!" answered
French Mons, and climbed into the triangle. "The is upon us!" " I have long thought I heard hoofs," said Oxehufvud softly. " Perhaps it would be wisest to run down and occupy the house." " Captain, do not command me to show the way I was received there as a guest; I am a chevalier and would rather be shot." " And how were you treated there?" " Like an excellency." "We shall see. Itseemsto be too latenow. Take aim Fire! A swarm of Polacks galloped forward and struck
!
with their spears across the logs, but the
first
volley
threw them from the saddle.
"Oohaho! oohaho!" rang through the wood. Riding shadows and long lines of men on foot gathered as far as the eye could see. In the half light they resembled the dark bushes that swayed
in the
wind.
fancy we
're
"
going to have
a pretty party with
the enemy," said Oxehufvud.
"We
are five-and-
twenty men, and around us stand fully three battalions."
"Now
we
are
only
twenty-four,"
answered
FRENCH MONS
French
soldier.
95
fallen
Mons
we
as he
took the musket from a
"Now
are only nineteen," said
Oxehufvud
after a time.
Shot rained over the triangle and killed man man. As soon as the riders shrank back, the Swedes stopped shooting, but when the silence once more enticed the Polacks and inspired them with the belief that there was no longer any man living behind the barricade, they were met at once by shot and swords and stones and boughs of trees. So the raging strife continued hour after
after
hour.
Oxehufvud
half aloud
:
stole along the stockade and counted " Eight, ten, thirteen we're not many
now.
sorry number."
He, too, had taken a musket, and on his knees was picking up the ammunition from the cartridgebox of one of the fallen. "Comrade," said he, and without rising he drew French Mons to him in his dressing-gown." I gave it to you rough, comrade, at noon on the swamp." "Now we are only seven," answered French Mons, loading and firing. "But soon we shall have
held out three hours." " Comrade, vou are not the
first
who
has
shown
me
that the
their
Swedes should not always laugh at dandies. You see, comrade, it happens some-
96
THE CHARLES MEN
times in this world that he who begins with a great peruke may end with a great deed."
we are only two." "Hardly two, for I have got mine already," answered Oxehufvud, and sank back against the logs. " Hardly two."
French
"Now
Mons now stood

his
alone
among the
dead.
dressing-gown and twisted some rags about his left arm, which was bleeding violently. His waistcoat, too, he cast away, and the lorgnette he stuffed into the leg of his boot. Then
tore
He
up
he lay down among the others as far in among the branches and twigs as he could creep. The next time the Polacks galloped forward, all
was
still.
vaulted over the logs with a wild cry and began to plunder, but when they saw him, bloody and half undressed, they let him lie, and at daybreak they went away. " Now," thought French Mons, " now I have my
officer's
They
commission.
The
certificate
He
crept out between the logs, and
comes later." up by the
house in the snow he happened upon the peruke, which had been thrown after him from the window. " The wretch " he whispered. " That 's my thanks
!
for saving his nest."
All day he went through the woods with his peruke under his arm, and only late in the even-
FRENCH MONS
ish
97
ing was he challenged by the outposts of the Swed-
camp. Tents and cabins of brush were set up in the woods without any sheltering entrenchments. On wagons or before their huts the women sat on a separate lane and cradled their children on their knees or whispered gently and quietly with their
soldiers.
Round
the fires the clay pipes puffed in
scarred hands.
There Cornet Brokenhjelm and the
dauntless Lieutenant Pistol related their adventures.
Lieutenant
Orbom
let his
neighbor
feel
with
re-
his fingers the
shot from Klissov which
still
mained behind his right ear after having gone in under his left eye and through his head. Per Adlerfelt, the dancing-master, lamented that the enemy always, as at Duna, shot so low that at last they would mar his handsome legs. There the lively Dumky jested, still wearing on his arm the garter which as a page he had got from a Silesian duchess. Svante Horn, who was being bandaged by his faithful servant, Lidbom, muttered that he could never charge without immediately getting a Cossack spear or sword in his body. Before him stood the genial gray-haired surgeon, Teuffenweisser,who continually put on and took off his spectacles, and
always required a dram before he attended rich
which allowed one man to grow gray under hardships and honors, but let another fall by the first shot in the
patients. All conversed of the fortune of war,
98
THE CHARLES MEN
No drinking-songs rang out, kettledrums king had and oboes play merbut the rily all night. It was a camp where that soft noise was like the murmur of a clear forest brook under
spring of his days.
dewy with June. Against the wish of the king, his bodyguards had wound his tent with hay and on that had laid sod, so that it was like a charcoal-kiln. It stood, not in the middle of the camp, but on the outerleafage
most edge and almost in darkness. Within, by the had built a fireplace of stones and had brought there time and again a red-hot cannonball. There was a wash-basin of pure silver, and on the table, beside the Life of Alexander the Great andthegold-bound Bible,stooda littlesilver-plated imageof the dog Pompey, which had died. But the light blue silken brocade on the chair and field-bed was already worn and spotted. In the middle of the tent crouched the dogs, Turk and Snuffler, but the king lay among the fir-twigs on the ground. The small beer was done, and the lackey Hultman had had nothing but a glass of melted snow and two slack-baked biscuits to offer him for supper. After that he had spread his cape over him and put on his embroidered nightcap. There now, at the midday
tent-pole, they
height of his victories, slept the king of the Swedes,
and
guishing gleam of the
narrow head was turned toward the lanlast glowing cannon-ball. It was long now since he had read the evening praver
his
FRENCH MONS
99
which he had formerly stammered out in his room while the wind raged in the lindens of Karlberg Park. His god had gradually darkened into the thunderous god of theOldTestament, totheavenging Lord of Sabaoth, whose commands he heard in his soul without needing to pray for them; and it wasThor and the Asar who drove around this camp in the rumbling of the nocturnal storm, and who with their trumpets hailed their youngest-born on
earth.
Then
the dogs began to
the half-grown
Max
whimper and growl, and of Wurtemberg, the Little
Prince, came, overjoyed and beaming, to the open-
ing of the tent.
"Your Majesty," he
ish voice,
cried, with his ringing
boy-
"awake, awake! Five-and-twenty Smaenemy." Behind him stood French Mons, propped against the gallant Captain Schmiedeberg, who himself still went on a crutch after an engagement over the baggage, where he with twelve men had fought against three hundred Polacks. PVench Mons had never carried his head more proudlv and contentedly, though he reeled with weariness; but when he heard that he was standing before the king's tent, he stopped short in anxiety. He stooped and tremblingly wiped the bloodstains from his hands. His hat, the medium peruke, and the little peruke he threw upon the ground, and
landers have been out and played with the
loo
THE CHARLES MEN
without considering the regulations, put on the

great spliced peruke. When he got himself in order,
he extended his arms along
his sides
and told
his
story stammeringly with chattering teeth.
The
king,
who continued
to
sit
on the
fir-twigs,
then slowly repeated it, investigating every word so as not to miss a single detail of the adventure.
He
rejoiced as a child
would
at a
wonderful saga.
said.
Finally he gave
him
his
hand.
" Oxehufvud spoke rightly," he
" The gen-
tlemen have had a pretty party with the enemy. It has been quiet enough herein camp, and I should myself have gladly been along. Since the Polish recluse begged in jest the loan of five louis d'or, I will leave him ten, and the gentleman shall go back and throw them in to him through the window."
French Mens went backward through the tent door, and Schmiedeberg caught him around the waist and conducted him into a ring of inquisitive, expectant comrades. There were ensigns and lieutenants and captains, who were his equals in age, but who had already risen higher in rank than he. "French Mons," they murmured, "now no one any longer dares laugh at your lorgnettes and your wigs. But how did it go with your commission and
certificate?
The
certificate!"
"Quiet, quiet! " said Schmiedeberg. "There are other rewards for the poor fellow. If His Royal Majesty might prevail, he would give no rewards.
FRENCH MONS
but would wish that each and
for
fall
loi
all should fight and honor alone." No one dared contradict Schmiedeberg, and dropping the arm of his new-found charge, he limped on his crutch a few steps nearer the fire. "Did n't you see?" he whispered "did n't you see that His Royal Majesty took him by the hand
almost as an equal?"
"There
nity," said
got
my
certificate for
time and eter-
French Mons.
In his dripping spliced wig and ragged shirt he
stood
all
the while upright with arms at his sides,
and he
"
still
stammered
in his
speech and chattered
his teeth.
And
your charter
as
baron," answered Schmie-
deberg
softly,
"you
get
when you
fall."
'The
ûeen of the Marauders
THE
tocsin in the church tower at
Narva had
ceased. In a breach of the battered rampart lay
the fallen Swedish heroes, over whose despoiled and naked bodies the Russians stormed into the city with wild cries. Some Cossacks, who had sewed a live cat into the belly of an innkeeper, were still laughing in a circle around their victim, but the gigantic Peter Alexievitch, the czar, soon burst his way through the midst of the throng on street and courtyard and cut down his own men to check their misdeeds. His right arm. up to the shoulder was drenched with the blood of his own subjects. Weary of murder, troop after troop finally assembled in the square and the churchyard. Under the pretext that the churches had been desecrated by the misbelievers who lay buried there, bands of soldiers began to violate and plunder the graves. Stones were pried up from the floor of the church with crowbars, and outside the graves were opened with shovels. Pillagers broke the copper and tin caskets into pieces, and threw dice for the silver handles and plates. The streets, where at the first melee the inhabitants had thrown down firebrands and tiles, and where the blood of the slain was still running in the gutters, were for manv davs piled
up with rusty or half-blackened coffins. The hair on some of the bodies had grown so that it hung
THE OUEEN OF THE MARAUDERS

out between the boards.
103
Some of the dead lay embalmed and well preserved, though brown and withered, but from most of the coffins yellow skeletons grinned forth from collapsed and mouldered shrouds. People who stole anxiously among them read the coffin-plates in the twilight, and now and
then recognized the name of a near relative, a mother or a sister. Sometimes they saw the ravagers
pull out the decayed remains
and throw them into
the river. Sometimes, again, protected by night,
they themselves succeeded in carrying them ofFand
burying them outside the city. So in the dusk one might encounter an old man or woman who came stealing along toilsomely with children or servingmaids, carrying a coffin.
One
night a swarm of pillagers bivouacked in a

it
corner of the churchyard. Hi! what fun
was to pile up a bonfire of bed-slats and bolsters and chairs and coffin-ends and what the devil else could be dragged forth! Flames and sparks blazed up as high as the attic window of the parsonage. Round about stood coffins propped one against another. The bottom of one of the uppermost had been broken, so that the treasurer, of blessed memory, who was inside it, stood there upright with his spliced wig on his head and looked as if he thought: " I pray you, into what companv have I been conducted?" " Haha little father," the robbers called to him, as they roasted August apples and onions at the
!
104
flames;
THE CHARLES MEN

"you
surely want something to wet your you there!" The glow of the fire lighted up the living-room of the parsonage, and the sparks flew in through the broken panes. In the rooms stood only a broken table and a chair, upon which sat the parson with his head propped on his hands. "Who knows.^ Perhaps it might succeed," he mumbled, and raised himself as if he had found the key to a long-considered problem. His silver-white beard spread itself all over his breast, and his hair hung down to his shoulders. In his youth, as chaplain, he had gone in for a little of everything, and he had never pushed back a cup that was offered him. Afterwards, as a widower in the parsonage, he had worshipped God with joy and mirth and a brimming bowl, and it was bruited
whistle,
about that he did not reach first for his Bible if a well-formed wench happened to be in his company. He therefore even now took misfortune more bravely and resignedly than others, and his heart was as undaunted as his soldierly body was un-
bowed by
years.
He went out into the entry and cautiously

Then
out,
pulled
out the five or six rusty nails that held down a couple of boards above a little narrow recess under
the
stairs.
he
lifted the
boards aside.
his voice
"
Come
my
child
" he said.
When
no one obeyed him,
grew some-
THE QUEEN OF THE MARAUDERS

!
105
what more severe, and he repeated his words: " Come out, Lina Both the other maids have been bound and carried away. It was verily at the last minute that I got you in here. But it is almost a day since then, and you cannot live without meat and
drink. Eh.?"
When
head
harsh
in
he was not obeyed, he threw back his annoyance, and he now spoke in accents of
"
command:
is
Why
don't you obey?
Do
you
as
think there
food here? There's not so
much
a pinch of salt left in the house.
You must
be got
away, you understand. If it goes ill with you, if a plunderer gets you on the way, I can only say this:
arms about his neck and follow with him back wherever it carries you. Many a time in the rough-and-tumble of war have I seen such a love, and then I have slung the soldier's cloak over my priest's frock and waved my hat for a lucky end to the song. Don't you hear, lass? When your late father, who was a tippler if I must tell the truth was my stable-boy and pulled me out of a hole in the ice once, I promised for the future to provide for him and his child. Besides, he was Swedish born, as I was. Well, have n't I always been a fatherly master to you, or what has Her Grace to object? Have her wits deserted her, eh?" Something now began to move in the pitch-black recess. An elbow struck against the wall, there was a rustling and scraping, and with that Lina Andersclasp your
on
his horse's
io6
THE CHARLES MEN
daughter stepped out, barefooted, in nothing but her chemise and a torn red jacket without sleeves but with a whole back to it, over which hung the braid of her brown hair. The light of the fire fell in through the window. Squatted together, she held her chemise between her knees, but her fresh, downward-bent face with broad, open features was as merry as if she had just stepped out of her settle-bed on a bright winter morning in the light of the dawn. The blood ran impetuously enough through the
veins of the white-haired chaplain, but in that
mohad
ment he was but master and father. " I did not knowthat in mysimplehouse
he,
folk
learned such a ceremonious feeling of delicacy," said
and gave herafriendlv paton the hareshoulders. She looked up.
"No," she said, "it's only because wretchedly cold."

"Ah,
well, that
in
's
I'm
T
so
like
natural.
That
I
's
the
way
people to talk
to give you.
my
house. But
have no garments
in tatters.
My
own hang on me
The
house may burn at any time. I myself can maybe sneak out on my way unaccosted, and I have a Riga rix-dollar in my pocket. Who asks about a ragged old man ? It 's another affair with you, Lina. I know these wild fellows, I know but one way to get you off, but I myself shrink from telling it.
Naturally, you are afraid."

"Afraid
I
107
'm
I
not. It will
go with
me
as
it
may.
To
I
be sure,
am no
better than the others.
Only
'm perishing of cold."
"Come
frightened.
here to the door, then, but don't be
Do
you
see out there in the

little
doorway
the rascals have set a

If
I
not be very heavy, but

in
it.
haps
I will have room you dare lay yourself in the casket, percan smuggle you out of the town." I
wooden think you
casket. It can-
"That
surely dare."
Her
free,
teeth chattered,
straightened herself up a
and she trembled, but she little, let the chemise hang
doorway. which was the plundered casket
in the
lid,
and went out on the stones
The
loose,
pastor lifted off the moist
and found nothing in but shavings and a brown blanket. "That was just what I needed," she shivered.
stepped up, and
ings.
She pulled up the blanket, wrapped it over her, laid herself on her back in the shav-
The
pastor bent over her, laid both his hands on
her shoulders, and looked into her fearless eyes. She might be eighteen or nineteen years old. Her hair was stroked smoothly back to the braid. As he stood so, it came over him that he had not always looked on her in the past with as pure and fatherly feelings as he himself had wished and as he had pretended to do. But now he did so. His long
white hair
fell
down
as far as her cheeks.
io8
THE CHARLES MEN

it
go well with you, child! I am old. It whether my life goes on for a while still or is destroyed in the day that now is. I have been in many a piece of mischief and many an ill deed in my time, and for the forgiveness of my sins I will also for once have part in something good." He nodded and nodded toward her and raised
matters
little
"May
himself.
There outside the clamor sounded louder than ever. He laid on the lid and fastened in as well as
he could the long screws that had been
places.
left in their
Then
he knelt, knotted a rope crosswise
around the casket, and with strong arms lifted the heavy burden on his back. Bending forward and staggering, he strode out into the open air. "Look there!" shouted one of the pillagers at the fire, but his nearest comrade silenced him with the word: "Let the poor old man alone! That's
only a miserable beggar's casket."
Sweat trickled out over the old man's face, and his back and arms ached and smarted under the heavy weight. Step by step he moved forward through the
Every now and then he had to set the the ground to take breath, but then he stood with his hand on the lid in constant fear of being challenged and hustled away or of being stabbed by some roving band of soldier revellers. Several times he had to step to one side because of
dark
streets.
casket
down on

the heavy wagons, loaded with
to be taken
109
men and women, hundreds of miles into Russia to people the waste regions. The great conquering czar was a sower who did not count the seeds hewho were
strewed.
When finally the old war-pastor reached the town

and the watch' came to meet him, he roused his strength to the utmost with all the collected will-power of his anxiety. With a single arm he held the casket in place on his back, while with his free hand he drew the Riga rix-dollar from his pocket and handed it to the sentry as a bribe. The soldier motioned to him to go on. He wanted again to move his foot forward, but now he was unable. Through the town gate he saw the river glimmer on the open plain, but then it grew dark before his eyes. Still afraid for his burden in his helplessness, he softly and cautiously lowered the casket beside him on the stone flagging. Thereupon he fell forward and died. The other men of the watch sprang forward and began to curse and complain. No casket could remain standing there in the door of the gateway. The officers, who were sitting and gambling in a room of the casemate, now came likewise to the spot. One of them, a little dry, weather-beaten figure with rectangular spectacles, who was more like a clerk than a soldier, took a lantern, came forward, and held the lid slightly ajar with his scabbard.
gate,
no
First he
THE CHARLES
drew back
his
MP:N
head precipitately, nearly next time he bent down and looked in, he dwelt on the action longer and more searchingly, and afterwards passed his hands over his whole face to hide his thoughts. Then
dropping the lantern.
The
he unhooked his spectacles and stood pondering. When he bent the third time, he sent the light back
and forward through the crevice, and there inside lay Lina Andersdaughter quite calmly, screwing
up her eyes at him in the lantern's light without herself knowing what was going on. "I 'm hungry," she said. He laid aside the lantern and went a couple of paces up and down through the door with hands crossed behind his back. There came then into his
expression a sly and merrily vibrating life, and unnoticed he took some August apples and thrust them into the casket. Thereupon he began
frigid
to give
commands.
here, boys
!
Let eight men take the casket and say that this is a small gift from his humble servant, Ivan Alexievitch. Eight of vou others who have just come from working on the walls go after it, and roll up your leather aprons like trumpets in which you are to blow the regimental march. But in front of all, two men are to go with rushlights. Forward, march!" The savage soldiers looked open-mouthed at one another and obeyed. Laughing, they lifted the
to General Ogilvy, salute him,
"
Come

casket on their muskets.
iii
long stalks, tarred and twisted about with straw, were brought forward from a corner of the gateway and lighted at
the lantern; and as the procession set itself in
tion into the field toward the
Two
mo-
camp, the musicians
tooted the march in their aprons:
O you^
who have
like
chosen a
gun
to
hear^
Ton care
You feed
not for lodging or bed^ lad^
a prince on the finest fare^

to
and of lice you ^ve enough and But when will you ever be paid, lad?
Of girls
spare.
When
they came to the camp, the soldiers rushed
together around them in the torchlight. General
Ogilvy,
tent.
who was
sitting at table,
came out of
his
"Beloved little father," said one of the bearers, " Lieutenant Ivan Alexievitch humbly sends you
this gift."
Ogilvy grew pale and
bit his lips
under
his
bushy
gray moustache. His face, wrinkled and strained to

harshness, was at bottom good-natured and friendly.
"Is he out of his right mind?" he thundered with pretended wrath, though in reality he was as
frightened as a boy.
"Put down
it
the casket and
break off the
lid
!"
The
soldiers pried
lid
the dark
rattled to
open with one side.
their blades,
and
Ogilvy stared. With that he burst out laughing.
"
112
THE CHARLES MEN

guffawed so that he had to
sit
He
earthen bench.
And
the soldiers laughed, too.
down on an They
laughed down through the whole lane of tents, so and tottered and had to support themselves one against another like drunkards. Lina Andersdaughter lay there in the casket with a half-eaten apple in her hand and made great eyes. She had now become warm again, and was as blooming of cheek as a doll. " By all the saints," Ogilvy burst out. " Not even in the catacombs of St. Anthony has man seen such
that they reeled
a miracle.
This
is
a corpse that
ought
to be sent to
the czar himself."
"By no means," answered one of his officers. "I sent him two little fair-haired baggages day
before yesterday, but he cares only for thin brunettes."
"So
it is,"
answered Ogilvy, and turned himself,
bending, toward Narva. "Salute Ivan Alexievitch
and say
that,
when
!
the casket
is
returned, there
Hey, sweetheart
He
shall lie in the
bottom of it
a captain's
commission.
went forward and stroked Lina Andersdaughter under the chin. But at that she sat up, took hold of his hair, and gave him a resounding box on the ear, and after that
another.
He did
not
let
it
affect
him
in the least,
but con-
tinued to laugh.
THE QUEEN PF THE MARAUDERS

" That
's
113
them," he said " that 's the way I Hke them. I will make you Queen of the Marauders, my chick, and as token thereof I give
the
way
like
you here a bracelet with a turquoise in the clasp. A band of our worst rabble stole it just now from the casket of Countess Horn in Narva." He shook the chain from his wrist, and she
caught
it
eagerly to her.
later in the
When,
evening, the cloth was laid in

clothes of flowered
the tent, Lina Andersdaughtersat at the table beside
Ogilvy. She had
now got French
brocade, and wore a headdress with blonde lace.
But what hands! She managed to eat with gloves, but under them swelled the big, broad fingers, and
the red shone between the buttons.
"Hoho! hoho!" shouted the generals. "Those hands make a man merrier than he would get with a whole flask of Hungary. Help! Tighten our belts! Hold us under the arms! It will be the death of us!"
Meanwhile she
tasted bad, she
filled
her plate,
munched
sweet-
air. If any thing Eat she could. Drink, on the contrary, she would not, but only took a swallow in her mouth, and then spurted the wine over the generals. But all their curses and worst
meats, and sat with her spoon in the
made
a face.
expressions she picked up, while she sat ever alike
blooming and gay.
"Help! help!" shrieked
the generals,
choked
114
THE CHARLES MEN

Blow out the
light so
with laughter, "

her!
little
we
can't see
Hold our
pufFof
foreheads! Help! Will you have a
mademoiselle?" peace?" answered Lina Andersdaughter. There was one thing, though, that Ogilvy skilfully concealed, so that the laughers should not turn to him and nudge him in the ribs and pull his coat tails and sav: "Oho, little father, you 've got into water too deep for your bald head. Bless you, little father, bless you and your little mishap!" He pretended always to treat her with slightly
a tobacco pipe,
"Go
to the deuce! Can't I sit in
indifferent familiarity, but he never sat so near her
that his
dog could not jump up between them.

it,
He
and
never took hold of her so that any one saw
never when no one saw

that her
it
either, for then he
knew
hand would catch him on the face, so that the glove would split, and the red shine out in all
strength. It was a fact that, notwithstanding, she
a slap in the
its
middle of the face, and no one did she snub worse than him. But at all this he only laughed with the others, so that never before had there been in the camp such a
clamor and bedlam. Sometimes he thought of knouting her, but he was ashamed before the others, because evervthing could be heard through the tent, and he feared that they then would the more easily guess how things stood, and how little he got along with the girl.
now and then gave him
"
115
"Wait," he thought, "we shall be sitting alone sometime behind locked doors. Just wait! Till then things may go on as they do." "Help, help!" shouted the generals. "That's how she carries her train. We must take hold of it. Lord, Lord, no but just look
!
"Take
That
train,
's
it
up, you," said she.

are for."
"Take
it
up, you.
what you
And
so the generals were cuffed and bore her
both when she came to the table and when
she went.
Then it happened one evening, when she sat among the drinking old men, that an adjutant
stepped in, hesitating and embarrassed. to Ogilvy.
He turned
"Dare
be frank?"
my lad." "And whatever I say will be forgiven " "By my honor. Only speak out!" "The czar is on his way out to the camp." " Verv good, he is my gracious lord."
"Naturally,
?
The adjutant pointed at Lina Andersdaughter. "The czar has a fancy for tall brunettes," said
Ogilvy.
"Your
changed
Excellency, in these
Call the troops to
last
days he has
his taste."
"God!
arms
and forward
rolled,
with the three-horse
wagon!"
Now the
alarm was struck.
Drums
trum-
ii6
pets blared,
THE CHARLES MEN
weapons clattered, and shouts and tramThe drinking party was broken up, and Lina Andersdaughter was set in a baggage
pling filled the night.
wagon.
Beside the peasant who was driving a soldier sprang up with a lighted lantern, and she heard the
peasant softly inquire of him the purpose of the
flight.
"The
czar," answered the soldier in a
mono-
tone, and pointed with his

at the girl.
thumb over
his
shoulder
shrunk together as at a frostcold breeze, and whipped the small, shaggy horses more and more wildly. He hallooed and beat and urged them into a thundering gallop. The lantern light fell caressingly on the fir bushes and the burnt homesteads; the wagon banged and tottered among the stones, and creaked in its joints. Lina Andersdaughter lay on her back in the hay, and looked at the stars. Whither was she carried? What fate awaited her? She wondered and wonthat the peasant
At
dered.
a
On
her wrist
hung the
bracelet as a talisman,
pledge for the accomplishing of Ogilvy's wonder-
ful prediction.
Queen of the Marauders

at first
It
sounded
so grand, though
she had but gradually disreally
covered what
she sat
the
word
betokened. She
stroked and plucked at the small silver rings.
Then
up and scanned the stony road
in the lan-
tern's light. Cautiously she
moved
further and fur-

wagon-sill and lowered
117
ther out. Unnoticed, she climbed slowly over the
her feet to the ground.

left
Would
she be crushed and
lying?
For
a few
steps she dragged along.
stumbled, and
fell
Then she lacerated among
lost her hold,
the bushes.
its
On
Then
thundered the baggage wagon with
three
galloping horses, and the lantern light vanished.
she got up and wiped off the blood from her
cheeks, while she wandered forth into the trackless
woods.
When
she met barbarous-looking fugitives, and
face, they at once picked berries and mushrooms for her and followed along. She got a whole court of ragamuffins, and she treated them so ill that they scarcely dared to touch her dress, but sometimes they stabbed one another. Finally she took service with a skipper's wife, who was to sail with her husband to Danzig. Scarcely had it begun to grow dark when the ragamuffins came out one after another and took service for nothing. The skipper sat on his cabin in the moonlight, blew his shepherd's pipe, and congratulated himself on having got such a willing crew. And never had the old woman seen a stronger servingmaid. But hardly had they put to sea when Lina Andersdaughter sat herself beside the skipper with her arms crossed, and all the ragamuffins lay on their hacks and sang in tune with the pipe. " Do vou think Ml scour your bunks? "said she.
1
thev saw her pretty
ii8
THE CHARLES MEN

her, beat her," cried the old
"Beat
woman, but
moved nearer, and blew and blew Night and day the vessel rocked on the bright waves with slack sail, and the skipper played for Lina Andersdaughter, who danced with
the skipper only
his pipe.
on
her ragamuffins; but
down
in the cabin sat the old
woman, crying and lamenting. When they came to Danzig, the skipper stuck the pipe under his arm and slunk off the vessel at
night with Lina Andersdaughter and her ragamufthat she thought of going Swedish troops in Poland and compelling the king himself to give her his hand.
fins.
They guessed now
to the
When she with her followers stepped, humming,

in among the Swedish women of the camp, there was uproar and alarm, because for two days they had sat by their wagons without food. The last provisions had been delivered to the sutlers and divided among the soldiers. Then she stepped forward to the first corporal she happened on and set her hands on her hips. "Are n't you ashamed," said she, "to let my women starve, when in spite of all you can't get along without them?"
''Tour
women?
Who
are
you?"
I
She pointed to her

daughter, the
take five
bracelet. "
am Lina Anders-
Queen of the Marauders, and now men and follow us!"

his captain, the reckless
He looked toward
Jacob

men.
kets,
119
Elfsberg; he looked at her pretty face and at his
How the line surrounded

!
her with their musthe light of the
and the women armed themselves with whip-
handles and pokers
At
night,
when
camp-fire tinged the heavens, the king, inquisitive,
got into his saddle.
As
the wild throng
came back
with well-laden wagons and oxen and sheep, the

troops cheered louder than ever: "Hurrah for King
Charles!
Hurrah for Queen Caroline!" The women thronged about the king's
horse, so
that the lackeys had to hold them back, and Lina Andersdaughter went to him to shake hands with him. But he thereupon rose in his stirrups, and
shouted over the women's heads to the corporal and " the five soldiers " That 's well maraudered, boys From that moment she would never hear the king named, and whenevershe meta man, she flung her sharpest abuse right in his face, whether he was
:
!
man, the young guardsman who, however, was and wounds held already famous
for his exploits
plain private or general.
When Malcomb
Bjork-
out his hand to her, she scornfully laid in it her ragged, empty purse; and she was never angrier
than when she heard General Meyerfelt whistling
as he
rode before his dragoons, or recognized ColoGrothusen's yellow-brown cheeks and ravenblack wig. But if a wounded wretch lay beside the road, she offered him the last drop from her tin
nel
flask
and
lifted
him
into her wagon.
Frost and
I20
THE CHARLES MEN

High on
the
scratches soon calloused her cheeks.
baggage wagon she sat with the butt of a whip and
commanded all the wild camp-followers, loose women, lawful wives, and thievish fellows that
streamed to them from east and west. When at night the flare of a fire arose toward heaven, the
soldiers
knew
that
Queen
Caroline was out on a
plundering
raid.
Days and
years went by.
winter quarters in Saxony,
Then, after the jolly when the troops were
marching toward the Ukraine, the king commanded that all women should leave the army. "Teach him to mind his own affairs!" muttered Lina Andersdaughter, and she very tranquilly drove on. But when the army came to the Beresina, there was murmuring and lamenting among the women. They gathered around Lina Andersdaughter's cart and wrung their hands and lifted their babies on high. "See what you have to answer for! The troops have already crossed the river and broken all the bridges behind them. They have left us as prey to
the Cossacks."
She
sat
with her whip on her knee and with high

still
gleamed the silver more violently did the terrified women sob and moan around her, and from the closed baggage wagons, which were like boxes, crept out painted and powdered Saxon huschain with
its
boots, but on her wrist
turquoise. All the

sies.
121
Some of them, none the less, had satin gowns and gold necklaces. From all sides came women she had never seen before. "Dirty wenches!" muttered she. "Now at last I have a chance to see the smuggled goods that the captains and lieutenants brought along in their wagons. What have you to do among my poor baggage crones? But now we all come to know what a man amounts to when his haversack is getting
light."
Then
they caught hold of her clothes, and called
upon her
psalm,
as if she alone could seal their fate. " Is there no one," she asked, "who knows the
'When
?
am borne through
sing it!"
the Vale of
Death'
Sing
it,
struck up the psalm with choked and nearlv whispering voices, but the others rushed down to the river, hunted out boats and wreckage from the bridges, and rowed themselves across. Each and every one who had a husband or a beloved in the army had hoped that even at the last she would be taken along and hidden; but
the
all
Some of
women
the worst
neither to this
women man
of the rabble,
who belonged
in a ring
nor to that, stood with their
rags or their tasteless, ridiculous
gowns
around Lina Andersdaughter. Meanwhile swarms of Cossacks, who had crossed the river to snap up anvstraggling marauders, were sneakingup through the bushes on their hands and knees.
122
THE CHARLES MEN

her heart failed her, and she stepped
Then
down
from the wagon.
"Poor
you. But
children!" she said, and patted the hus-
sies on the cheek.
now
"Poor
children,
will
devil take
me!
do you
not desert
pray to
God
for
I
that
He
will
make your blood-red

else to offer
sins white,
have nothing
you than
to
shame
the
men and
die a hero's death."
She opened the wagon chest and hunted out from among her plunder some pikes and Polish sabres, which she put into the hands of the softly
singing
women. Thereupon she herself grasped a musket without powder or shot, and set herself
the others around the cart to wait. So they
among
shore.
stood in the sunset light on the highest part of the
Then the women on the river saw the Cossacks rush forward to the cart and cut down one after another of them with the idea that they were men
in disguise.
soldiers
They wanted to turn their boats, and sprang down from their ranks to the water
fire.
and opened
for King Charles," they cried with a thousand intermingled voices; "and hurrah No,
"Hurrah
too
it's
late.
Look, look! There

in the
is
Queen
Caroline
dying a virgin
midst of the harlots with a
musket
in her
hand!"
Mazeppa and His Ambassador

a splendidly decorated sleeping apartment INstood a high bed with plumes at the corners.
Behind the half-drawn bed-curtain lay an old man of sixty-three with the coverlet pulled up under his beard, his long white hair spread over the pillow.
His whole forehead was hidden under was Mazeppa.

Beside the bed,
carpet, lay several
a plaster. It
among cups of medicine on
the
books of Latin and French poetry, and at the door a little wizened priest carried on a whispered conversation with two green-clad messengers from Czar Peter. " He scarcely comprehends your words," whispered the priest, giving a painfully searching look toward the sick man. " He even lies speechless for
long periods.
old
his
Who
could have imagined that the

life
man
with his joy of
would suddenly
lie
on
death-bed?"
"Ivan Stefanovitch," one of the strangers said with raised voice, approaching the bed, "our magnanimous czar, vour lord, sends you greeting. Do you remember? Those three Cossacks of yours who stole off to him and related that you secretly
planned a rebellion against his over-lordship, he has had them fettered and returned to you as gifts of friendship. Ivan Stefanovitch, he relies on vour
loyalty."
124
THE CHARLES MEN
Mazeppa's eyes opened feebly and his lips moved, but he was only able to utter an unintelligible whisper.
"We understand you," cried the messengers, speaking all at once. "We understand you. You greet him and thank him for his favor, and we are to say to him that you are bowed under your years and that you have already turned all your thoughts to that which is not of this world."
"I fear,"
murmured
it
the priest to
them
aside,
"that here
The
soon be over." messengers nodded sadly, and backed out

will
of the sleeping apartment.
As soon
door.
as
they were out, the priest bolted the
"They have gone," he said. Mazeppa sat up and tore the

brow, throwing
it
plaster
from
his
far across
the carpet.
His dark
wide-open eyes gleamed and twinkled. A flush rose and paled on his cheeks, and under the handsomely curving nose shone teeth as white and fresh as a youth's. He tossed away the coverlet and, fully clad from tip to toe in long-coat and boots with spurs, he sprang from the bed, and jestingly pinched the priest in the ribs. "You little rascal priest, you! You vagabond! This time we did n't manage badly. In Moscow
they
less will believe that
old
Mazeppa
is
lying help-
and harmless.
God
be gracious to his pious
"
MAZEPPA AND
soul!
HIS
AMBASSADOR
you!
125
Haha-hey You
!
little rascal priest,
You
arch-hypocrite!"
The priest laughed dryly. He was a deposed bishop from Bulgaria, and his round head with its short nose and deep-sunken eyes was like a skull.
Mazeppa grew still livelier. "Mazeppa dying! Ay, ask his mistresses! Only ask them No, my great Muscovite czar, you, now
!
am going to live and be quits with you." "The czar suspects you, my lord, but he wishes
you with magnanimity.
I
to disarm
He
can be like
that."
"And
one night
not struck
his,
at table,
should have been conquered by it, if when we were drunk, he had

the ear.
I I
me on
value
my
I
ear as he does
It sticks in
and an
birth,
I
insult
can never forgive.
the soul and frets and gnaws. If
am
not a king
by
with his
am one in soul. And what does he want German coats on my splendid Cossacks?
Relate your adventures, you
Now
liar!"
to business!
lord, dressed as a mendicant monk, I went on my way to the Swedish headquarters. Sometimes I set a tavern lass on my knee and a can on the table corner, but when I peeped down and saw the toes sticking out of my ragged shoes, I thought to myself: This is Mazeppa's ambassador!" " Very good, but how did you find the dandy ?
"My
forth
126
THE CHARLES MEN

be sure. His Swedish Majesty, King CaroDon't you believe he dandifies as much with grimy rags as any French prince of scented
"The dandy?"
"To
lus.
his
And he possesses that wonderful Northern recklessness which continually snaps a riding-whip and cries: 'Rubbish! that's nothing It 's no matter He has never been able to grieve for a misfortune longer than overnight. That has been the secret of his power. Woe to him and his fate when he sits up night after night without sleep! I am curious to see him. I long for it.
water with his silk stockings?
!
'
But
tell
on!"
I
" First
glass
found him
in
wig and armor on the
tavern lass's neckcloth or pinafore, and on the
from which I drank, and on the icing I ate, and on table-cloths and chest-lids and tobacco-boxes and market-booths. No one spoke of anything else than of him, and the children arranged themselves and played at Swedish divine service. The old peasants called him the sword-pope of the Protestants chosen by God Himself, and took off their hats in speaking of him." "Ah yes, but how did you find him himself, when you came to headquarters?" " I warn you. I predict misfortunes. I saw an omen. I found him puffed up and haughty of spirit."
"As
a great personality of
whom
the world be-
gins to disapprove."
MAZEPPA AND
HIS
AMBASSADOR
127
" Marlborough, after an audience in Saxony, left his camp with a shrug of the shoulders, and sovereigns begin to laugh at him behind his back. His own generals have grown weary." " He has become a* hero of the rabble, you think. Well, even then, that's the sort of man I need to
gather the wild hordes. If you do not assure
that
me
I
you have seen him

is
:
eat
and drink,
being.
cannot
believe that he
a living
human
Then
should have to say The young prince of the Swedes fell in the tumult of victory at Narva, but his shade rides ever on before his troops. Snow falls and falls, and drums rattle andrumble,and the thinning battalions do not know and do not understand whither he leads them. When the enemy recognize him in the powder-smoke, they lower their muskets in superstitious awe and dare not shoot,
and he does not notice that sometimes he cuts down men who are making ready to fall on their knees. Hired assassins throw down their weapons at sight and he lets them of him and give themselves up go unpunished. Don't talk to him about states and
treaties!
He
does not fight for possessions as
men
re-
do; he wields the sword of
God
to revenge
and
ward.
What
did he require just
now
as the
reward
of victory
at the
conclusion of peace?
Money?
Land ? Of Austria he required a councillor who had slandered him at table and a swarm of Russian soland freediers who had fled in over the border
128
THE CHARLES MEN

of conscience for the Protestants.
dom
Of
Prussia
he demanded the imprisonment of a colonel who had given counsel to the czar, and banishment for
a writer
who had
cavilled at his stipulations against
he demanded Patkull and Swedish renegades, but freedom for the Princes Sobieski and all Saxons who had gone over to the Swedes. King August himself he compelled to pack up the old Polish regalia in a velvet trunk and send them to King Stanislaus. And now, since he has deposed King August in Poland, he wants to depose the czar or challenge him to a duel, but their crowns and governments he would not even take as a gift. Since antiquity no stranger man has held a sword
the Pietists.
all
Of Saxony
or a sceptre."
Mazeppa, while he was speaking, grasped one of the bedposts so hard that the plumes of the
canopy shook. But the other lifted three fingers and replied: "I have warned you. Everything that he touches he dedicates to misery and death. Yet he is the pasilken
tron saint of adventurers.

to stability
He
has raised adventure
and greatness. You too, mv lord, are an adventurer, and I myself am the worst adventurer of you all. Therefore I will be compliant." He lowered his hand and drew near with disrespectful
familiarity.
"You, Ivan
I
Stefanovitch
Have you
to
never wondered that
directed
my steps
your particular door?"
MAZEPPA AND
"You
HIS
AMBASSADOR
129
were driven from your episcopal see be-
cause of vour unfaith and your pranks." " It really amounted to a little pilfering of small
import. There were on the ikon-stand a couple of
emeralds " Which you replaced with

all
"
secrecy sold, so that
fully
and
in a
bits of glass and in you might live more bountimanner more worthy a servant of the
church."
"Let us say no more about it! So I heard of Mazeppa, the former page at Johann Casimir's
court,
who in his powdered wig was attentive to the wayward sex so long that a jealous husband at last bound him naked on a horse's back and drove him forth into the wilderness. And there he built up a kingdom of adventurers. Saint Andrew guarded you, Mazeppa. I needed a little master who would be ashamed to strike off a good head, who would let me read my Greek and my Machiavelli in peace,
and to whom I might say 'Agreed, old fellow! It's all a shadow plav, even this that you are lord and I servant.' Therefore I came to you. My adventurer's blood cannot bear to sit still, and I weary of your wine mixed with water, for you are a great miser, Mazeppa; but as you are now pondering a
:
financial transaction in musket-balls,
follow you.
And
as the
Swedish king no longer

his people,
listens to his
generals or to the beseeching letters from hisgrand-
morhcr and
and comes hither by the
130
THE CHARLES MEN
most perilous and impossible roads, he wishes to With you and your he will march against Cossacks your lord. Here are
accept your offer of an alliance. the papers."
The
priest
shook
off his cope
and stood
in
Cos-
sack dress with pistols in his girdle, and from his
bosom he drew forth some folded papers. Mazeppa grew pale, seized them, and held them
pressed long to his mouth, while he sank his fore-
head and bowed

saint.
*'
as before the invisible
image of
Drums, drums " he stammered in agitation. But when the priest had got to the door, he
don't
let
checked him.
"No,
the
drums
strike
up
before to-
morrow."
Thereupon he went
little
to a plain
wooden
table in a
side-room, and sat dowti over his account
He had his bailiffs summoned, and calcuand calculated, and prescribed greater economy in the milk department. Half a merry knight of the roads and half a learned but thrifty proprietor of lands, he finally superintended the packing of his many trunks and boxes. Sometimes he bent down and helped. Last of all, next morning he put on an old-fashioned and much-adorned Cossack costume. Impetuous and active, he sprang up from his chair as soon as he had sat down, but he rebooks.
lated
mained standing before the mirror
for
some
little
MAZEPPA AND
time,
HIS
AMBASSADOR
131
now and then running

as the
his delicate, small white
hand through his beard.
As soon
gallop.
music was heard, he mounted to
the saddle and kept his charger constantly at a
When, after a time, he had come to the Swedes and was riding one morning through a flurry of
snow
in
the king's retinue, the priest, as
if
by
acci-
dent, pulled
up
his horse alongside
him.
Round
about the troops marched past, sprinkled with grime, their weapons and cannon covered to prevent rusting. Baggage wagons clattered along with their weight of provision sacks and sick men, and sometimes with a covered coffin. Last were driven massed herds of cattle. Drunken Zaporogeans, prancing Cossacks, and eagerly drumming Polish Wallachians rode in green and red cloaks and with high brass helmets on which bells were tinkling. Some were brandishing tufted spears and bows or long flint-locks inlaid with silver and ivory. Others played on a sort of wailing wooden pipe. It was a colorful, legendary sort of march, that went over untrodden and unknown forest paths, over frozen marshes, and under snowy fir trees toward the mysterious East.
"
"you promised
Mazeppa," the priest began in a low to come to the Swedes with
voice,
thirty
132
THE CHARLES MEN
thousand Cossacks, but hardly four thousand followed you." Mazeppa kept his roan at a gallop, and nodded in silence, and the priest never wearied of his gibes. " Day before yesterday half of these went off. Yesterday more still. Soon you will have barely a couple of hundred fellows, barely the servants who watch over your trunks and the two barrels with your money. Your uprising was betrayed, vour cities are burned, your few faithful men nailed on boards and thrown into rivers. Soon you will be nothing but a gorgeous knight in the train of the Swedish
king."
As Mazeppa was
still,
the priest continued
"To-
day I too will abandon you, because the small beer of the Swedes tastes sour to me, and my toes stick out too far from my shoes. Your ambassador needs a richer lord. Farewell, Ivan Stefanovitch!" Mazeppa replied, "As long as I have still my head and my philosophy, I remain Mazeppa. While my Cossacks turned and broke away, I had the hetman staff and mace carried before me, and I rode on to the king as if I had come in front of Xerxes' millions. And he, with his impoverished realm, his discontented generals, and his sinking sun, came
toward me like the most fortunate among princes. What does it trouble him and me how many ride behind us? He has had enough of kinglv honor, and wishes also to be a chosen man of God. He
MAZEPPA AND
thinks of history as a
HIS
AMBASSADOR
in love
133
man
does of his
sweetheart: he would not win her favor by his birth
but by his person. If we two, he and I, should one day be the last survivors and sit in an earthen hut on the steppe, we should still continue to talk philosophy and treat each other as at a coronation
dinner."
"You
the
speak of
his sinking sun.

!
You
have seen
talk with-
omen, even you

is
He can
no longer
out boasting like a baggage driver."
"It
easy to be modest as long as everybody
praises."
Mazeppa threw back

lofty
his white-haired head with contempt, and galloped forward to the king,
who
raised his hat
and bowed and bowed again

joked
in
his saddle.
Round about
them. " When
krona, "
I
several of the generals
as
loudly as possible so that the king might hear
come
to
Moscow," said Anders Lagerthe seat of
shall
mend
my
trousers with
the czar's night-cap."
"Pshaw!" answered Axel

ernor at the Kremlin."
Sparre.
old prophecy that a Sparre will
"There is an some day be gov"Shoot down
"This way!"
cried the ensigns.
any one who dares to hinder such a great and exalted prince from marching forward wherever he
chooses,"
134
THE CHARLES MEN

king smiled and
The
run, Russia
hummed: "Russia must must run." But when the speakers
were no longer within his hearing, they were transformed and became absent and melancholy. "Your Majesty " cried Mazeppa in crisp Latin and with kindling eyes, "Your Majesty's conquering arms go on so far that one fine morning we shall have hardly eight miles more to Asia." "As to that the authorities used to disagree," answered the king, moved, but hunting for the Latin words, his gaze fettered by Mazeppa's white and pleasingly mobile hands. "If the border is not far off, we must go there, so that we can say we were
!
also in Asia."
The
voices died away, and the priest reined in
his horse.
"Asia!" he muttered, "Asia doesn't lie in the middle of Europe. But ride on, ride on with you, my adventurous lords! I have changed my name and dress so many times that none of you Swedes will ever notice what I was. But do not forget that it was the ragged monk, the vagabond, Mazeppa's ambassador, who by his cunning negotiations laid his blue-frozen finger on your and your demi-god's fate and directed you into the wildernesses. You are right. King Caro]us,and you, Mazeppa. Evervthing depends at the last on individual men." It snowed and snowed, and he sat motionless on his lean horse, while the battalions marched by,
MAZEPPA AND HIS AMBASSADOR 135 silent and impatient. When the last soldiers turned
and looked back at the solitary, unknown rider, and saw his little compressed death-skull head, they were seized with fear and hastened their steps.
Fifty Tears hater

the porridge had been eaten and the branch candlesof tallow which shone on both sides of the pewter dish stood more than half burnt out, the chairs were drawn close to the fire. The manor-house was one of the smallest and poorest
in the district,
WHEN
visible there.
The straw
but in the evening no poverty was lay soft as a carpet over the
had been set beside the dark and streaming windows, the gleam from the open fireplace tinted with yellow the whitewashed wooden walls. Recently, too, a goblet of sherry had been offered about. All knew, furthermore, that the most festive time of the evening was now come. Even the two servant-girls, who wore to-day their
floor planks, fresh juniper
best holiday jackets, cleared the table as slowly as
possible and hid themselves, waiting, by the door,

for
now
old Captain
Hook, a Charles man, brought

fire. It
out his tobacco-box and drew in the chair of honor

to the
middle place before the
was, however,
only after he had unlaced his brogans and laid his

crossed feet with their thick white stockings on the
fender to
warm them thoroughly
that he
seemed
to feel himself fully at ease.
To
be sure, he alone
had carried on the conversation almost all the evening, and now at last spoke of Ehrencrona, who had received the Order of the Sword from King Frederick and never could wear it otherwise than in a
FIFTY YEARS LATER

snuff-box.
137
But
in the
and
reflective,
same moment he became stern and slipped into a new history. It
was, indeed, alleged that he generally lied roundly,
but nobody cared about that, for the principal thing was that he should keep on with his tales. He was already an elderly man with a frost-bitten lump of a nose. Both his hair, which was brushed forward, and his moustaches, which were twisted youthfully, had always been so light that nobody noticed whether the years had made one or another strand still whiter. And he sat on the chair in his scanty, buttoned-up coat as upright as formerly. Without any transition he began in his usual way.
Yes, the autumn when I went astray in the woods I was certainly badly off. I mean the autumn down
Lewenhaupt had just made us destroy our last wagons, and was leading us along the Soza River to find a ford, so that when on the other side
in Severia.
we might be
able to grope our
way forward
to the
king's army; but
many
foot-soldiers
had stopped to
plunder the wagons.
I was an ensign at that time. Together with several others, I was sent back by Major-General Stackelberg to master the fellows, but the Russians were already among them, and I scarcely knew in the darkness how I could manage
to save
myself across the

I I
river.
When, dripping with
water and mud,
stood in the heather on the farther
bank,
stumbled on a dragoon private.
He
was
138
THE CHARLES MEN

my own
regiment, and
from
we
called
him Long
Jan, because he was one of the tallest and slimmest lads that ever lifted a Swedish blade. His chest was
narrow, but his hands were large. LLs arms and legs
have hardly a single muscle, and there was not a particle of down on his lean and simple face a face any one would know again by the slanting eyes and the thick under lip. God knows taken had ever been along. But why he in that moment I was as glad to get sight of that lanky spectre as if I had met a sweetheart, and at random, but still as fast as we were able, we turned our steps
seemed
to
into the forest.
At
the start
we leaped along so
and not
until
and dry our
clothes,
as to get warm dawn did we lie
down
to sleep.
For many days after, we struggled on through the woods and swamps, and our clothes were still as wet as before. Once we took them off and hung them on a branch, but in the misty autumn air this helped but little, and we were only so much the colder when we succeeded, with great difficulty, in pulling them on again. As to our boots, there was no talk of getting them off. They dried temporarily during our progress, but soon became as completely soaked in a marsh, and one shower of rain followed
another.
T
had with
me
I
a bit of
meat and
a piece
of black
it
bread, which
divided with
my
silent and, as
FIFTY YEARS LATER
139
seemed, submissive brother in misfortune, and after that we chewed leaves and twigs and anything we could find. Hunger, though, was not nearly such a gnawing plague as the continual chilly dampness, which made our teeth chatter even in our sleep. As our strength failed, our joints stiffened, so that we could not move them without pain. One evening we heard an unexpected barking, and for a moment I realized that I flushed with joy, but immediately after came hesitation, with thoughts of danger. I turned to the opposite direction, and Long Jan followed me, silently as always, but when we had walked awhile, I noticed that we only came much nearer to the barking. Then I took the soldier by the arm and turned again toward the other side, but, similarly drawn by an irresistible inner attraction, we kept walking so that we came nearer and nearer to the dog. When I finally let go of Long Jan's arm, he still went on. "Halt!" I called after him, excruciated with the damp and yet little minded to go straight into a hostile place where most likely axes would be the
first
things to greet us. " Halt, halt " repeated

!
Long Jan obediently, but
in spite
of that continued to go on.

I
Then belt. As
raced
I
up
to
him and caught him by the

soon
as
I
long as
held him, he stood quite straight

as
let
and motionless, but went on.
go
my
hold, he
140
!
THE CHARLES MEN

!
" Halt Stand " I thundered, raging as if I had found myself under fire, and dumbfounded at such an abrupt and insubordinate obstinacy in a soldier who had learned ouriron-harddiscipline." Will you not obey your own ensign, fellow?" " Halt Stand " he repeated, butcontinued on as
!
!
before, as
though no longer master of
his
own
feet.
"Come on, then, in Jesus' name!" I burst out; "we can't get it worse than it has been already. But now you have made yourself an ensign, though you
are barely
one of the rank and
file,
and
me
up
a
in
mon
soldier.
Be
so
good
as to lay that
comyour
memory 1" Long Jan answered

he hear me.
after a
I
nothing, neither perhaps did
resigned myself to following him, and
few minutes we came out on a level clearing

barns and houses. Right beside us stood
with
many
a great wooden building with

set glittered
many stories. The sun-
on the raindrops which hung on the cementing moss between the rough logs of the wall, and the window-panes glimmered as if lighted by countless chandeliers but the door was locked, and no smoke came from the chimneys. The house was as a corpse with closed mouth and without breath, but with eyes hideously lighted by a cold gleam from without. Tied to a stake behind a straw-stack that had crookedly collapsed, a lean dog crept back and forth along the ground and wagged his tail when he saw us.
;
FIFTY YEARS LATER

Long Jan went
straight forward to the
141
banged on it, but no one opened. Then blade and smashed in the nearest window with the hilt. At that moment we heard from within a frightened woman's voice shouting again and again to some one who was called Varvara. The broken glass fell tinkling, the leaden frame was bent on all sides into long hanging strips. Then running steps were heard in the house. The next moment the door was opened by a well-grown and stately serving-maid with a broad, light braid of hair down her back and a multitude of jingling silver pieces on her black hood and red and green bodice. In her hand she held an unlighted lantern, which in her terror she had presumably seized from habit. "We'll do no harm," I said, trying as well as I could to explain myself in the bothersome speech. "Heaven forbid such a horror, most gracious young lady! But we are nearly starved and above
all
door and he drew his
we
require
"
"Dry
that
I
clothes," broke in
first
That was the

had heard
Long Jan, shivering. time in the long wandering
chap utter anything of his own accord, and then he had had the impudence into the bargain to take the word out of my mouth. When the girl turned around and left the door half open, he did indeed stand aside to give me place, but I remarked irritably: "The Herr Ensign will surely go first."
this peculiar
142
THE CHARLES MEN

deliver
"God
me from any
such thing," he an-
swered, and smacked his boot-heels together. But,

partly cheered
still
angry,
that
by the peaceful reception, partly added in such a sharp tone of voice he could not doubt my seriousness: "Or else
I
devil take the ensign!"
Then
he dragged his long legs in through the
door ahead of me and, as the house had no entry, we found ourselves at once in a large hall, where
a heating-stove of variegated porcelain rose like a tower to the middle of the ceiling.
walls,
which consisted entirely
Along the of rough-hewn
logs caulked with moss, stood several black-var-
nished chairs, and on a shelf gleamed pots of pewter.
The serving-maid ran awav and called Varvara, who finally appeared, dazed and frightened, in the
farthest corner of the
girls tarried,
darkened
hall.
There the two
whispering anxiously.
After a while, however, they grew easier; and

they could not keep from giving each other a look
and feeling more accommodating when

edly called
unexpect-
them "gracious young
ladies,"
and
ac-
cordingly feigned not to understand that they were
poor
serfs.
That was
drop of warm
oil
on the hard
of the
wax, and they
now
told us that the noble masters

at the report
had gone away two weeks ago

Swedes' approach,
in the
Thev
separately assured us that
whole house,
left
ves, in the
whole place, there
was nothing
of any value whatever, but that
FIFTY YEARS LATER

gers.
143
they would gladly do their best to serve the stran-
Varvara had pretty teeth, but she was too small and fat and black-fleeced, and after a while she let out such a piercing laugh that I was annoyed. The yellow-haired girl, who was called Katarina, on the other hand, I could not keep from pinching on the ear in fun, when she brought in wood to the stove. Meanwhile Long Jan had, without further cere-
mony, pulled
had neither
the waist in
off his tattered blue coat,
shirt
all
and as he nor vest, he soon stood naked to his miserable leanness, so that no
no one but one could keep serious any longer himself Never had I seen a cheerful twitch pass over that stolid face. After we had each of us got a sheepskin coat and stilled the worst hunger with a little mashed turnip and kvass, we laid us down by the stove with broadswords between our knees, and I ventured to order the Herr Ensign to watch with me alternately, in case any one could possibly have any evil in mind. I also forbade the two serving-maids to leave the hall, and reading my prayers aloud in Swedish, entrusted us to the Almighty. The Almighty lets us human beings now But! and then give each other surprises. When no one addressed me, I went on sleeping for hours, till I was waked by a piercing warmth, which at other times I should have called a pain, but which now at least reminded me that I was no longer a wan-
144
THE CHARLES MEN

man
again.
dering skeleton, but a living
And
I
still,
saw the hall dark and empty, and heard shrieks and heated clamor from the room adjoining. I at once took my broadsword and sprang to the door. There I saw a blazing cook-stove, and before it stood Long Jan in a checkered dressing-gown of bright silk and high-heeled shoes. Obviously the rascal had also skill in foraging, for a fowl sat already on the spit, and in a bubbling pot he threw, higgledy-piggledy, everything he could gather from the half-sobbing girls. In the midst of this he took out of a broken cupboard one splendid glass after another, smashed it to pieces on the edge of the fireplace, and threw the fragments on the floor. I went forward and took the lanky loon around the body, but was not in a condition to remove him from the spot. His incredible obstinacy gave agiant's strength to his slim body, and I was still exhausted by all the sufferings we had gone through. When he turned his face toward me, his eyes were glassily fixed, but I noticed a whifiôfwine. Quite taken aback, I now let him go. He was drunk. The. yellow-haired Katarina, who really seemed much more amused than frightened, meanwhile came up to me and told me in her soft voice ho old Captain Hook was young in those davs and a Where were we now? Oh, ves, pretty fellow she said that he had gone from room to room,
will
who
not understand
my
terror
when

FIFTY YEARS LATER
145,
hunted through everything, and broken the vases and clocks. Finally, in the cellar he had searched except one through all the vaults except one one one, to which the key was lost, she added
hurriedly.
"But you, poor
fellow,
may
also
thing," she said to me, and pushed room, which might have been
me
need someinto another

palatial.
called
Around
the walls
hung woven greenish
tapestries,
on which Diana hunted a deer. The most splendid garments lay spread ,out over the slippery and shining floor; the armchairs were gilded, and beside a dish in the middle of the table stood mugs which
were not
ale,
I,
filled
with sickening kvass, not even with

lost
but with a clear, yellow wine.

too,
now
my
reason at the vision of
all
and my mistrust was somewhat eased because the two girls themselves seemed heartily delighted at having the chance to waste and destroy. They, too, felt themselves on hostile ground in the house where they had formerly had to go about as obedient and humble thralls. It was
this magnificence,
for
of victory to be able to destroy the delicacies which they had never tasted, to throw
a
them
moment
themselves into proud reclining-chairs before which

they had been forced to bow to the floor, and to trample on the costly garments which they had
been scarcely deemed worthy to touch.

lected for
They
se-
me
a coat
of
stifi^
cloth-of-silver,
which
146
THE CHARLES MEN
had tails spread out with whalebone so that they were like a swelling skirt; and I got stockings and red shoes on the feet from which that evening I had ripped the boots with difficulty. Just the same, I did not dare to throw off the broadsword from my body, because I could not altogether put aside all doubts as to an ambush. With the wholly childlike frankness of a little heart-subduer Katarina clapped her hands, which in fact were neither white nor soft, and confessed that she felt really jolly, since with me, who was of the same class, they could be as they chose; whereas before the ensign, who was a fine gentleman, they always had to be careful. I sat down to the table in one of the armchairs, which was nearly buried under my glittering coat tails, and on either side I invited one of the girls, and clinked glasses with them and drank. "The Herr Ensign is of very high extraction," yes, a counsaid I. "He will end as, it may be That was up to then my most cillor of state."
unseasonable remark, because people

the pen
"But the gracious young

foolish
I
who
ladies
wield
know
that the highborn sometimes,
may be born both

it is
therefore that
by an unlucky hap, and simple-witted, and regard myself obliged some-
times to screw
up
his wits a little into the right
groove, so to speak."
I
have always had
a fault as a soldier.
have
FIFTY YEARS LATER

time, but in the very act
147
been able both to hack and to hew at the right I have been too goodnatured and accommodating. Therefore, too, I let Long Jan rummage in the kitchen however he chose, while I myself ate and drank to my heart's content. But with every gulp I felt how the wine kept on taking away my wits. That I did not become more forward than I was toward my merry hostesses depended less on the virtue with which the Almighty has sometimes wisely endowed beauty than on the hardships I had gone through, which quickly enough changed the wine into a sleeping potion. Reflection told me that I should push the mug aside, but, in addition to the distress of the last days, the wine was irresistible. I fell asleep sitting with hands crossed over the pommel of my sword. "Now I hear tiptoeing steps," said I to myself in my dreams. " They are coming yet nearer behind my chair. Now I must draw steel. But what's that I can move neither hand nor foot, though I am so much awake that I can see Diana and her greyhounds on the tapestry. All the air is dancing vapor, which rustles around the faces of the prattling girls and the flames of the waxlights. I am helplessly drunk. Of that there is no doubt, but now I am asleep again, and there's a tiptoeing behind my chair. A hidden serf stands there with his axe.
Even now
he's lifting
it.
The
next instant
shall
148
feel
it
THE CHARLES MEN

as a lightning-flash
all's over.
then
I
Why
through my head won't the chair stand
and
still?
myself on, if you jump. Whoa, there, Whiteface! I 'd have you know there's nothing in the world that can scare me. But to hold myself on, sitting backward on the loins of one of the king's that I can't. Bang! Look galloping chargers there! Now I'm lying there in the middle of the Fie What are you laughing stone pavement. the vault in the cellar. Why And then for? one did you say just now that there was one one two, one two, one two, lads in blue, two three, in grief and glee, three four, their land adore, four five, and boldly strive, five six, for Carolus Rex." Finally I raised myself on my aching elbow and sang the whole of Psalm Number Six from the first to the last verse, and that with such a powerful voice that it seemed to me as if every thing evil must have shrunk away in terror. Many times have I treated myself to a booze, but never one that gave me worse agony. When I awoke in the morning, I sprang at once from the floor, where I was lying at full length on my back by the chair. I was still so sure of an ambush that I was wholly surprised when I found both the girls sleeping on a sheepskin under the table, on which a light was burning in the socket. Out in the kitchen I heard strange voices and came there upon an old
can't hold
. .
FIFTY YEARS LATER
149
one-eyed witch who was called Natalia, and a shaggy serf who was called Makar, and who to the smallest detail resembled the man of whom I had dreamed. They confessed that they had kept themselves hidden in the attic, but had now crept out when they noted that we intended no harm. They related that in the neighboring village there had also been several families during the night, but that at the report of our coming these had straightway loaded their belongings on a wagon and driven off at a gallop. For the first time now I could honestly feel myself free from all apprehension, and with joy I went back to the hall, bent over the girls, and kissed Katarina both vigorously and long. She woke up and laughed and turned over on her side to sleep further, but I kissed her yet again,
and then she defended herself and jumped up, brisk and cheerful. "You are a fine girl, Katarina, and I don't need to mistrust you any longer," said I. "Fetch me a little fresh water now and some salt." While she came and went to set out my breakfast I often took her about her none too slender waist, and kissed her. At last she kissed me back, too, and leaned against the cloth-of-silver on my breast, and cried and laughed alternately. We went back and forth through the many rooms, but at a certain door she always checked herself, because back of it the ensign had been pleased to go to rest
150
in
THE CHARLES MEN
one of the noble master's own down beds. Finally we sat down in a yellow reclining-chair, and I took her on my knee and wound her thick plait about my wrist. It was no falsehood either when I whis-
pered into her ear that my hardened soldier's heart had seldom beaten more warmly. I think with regret of the happy days that followed, and rather than recall them hour by hour,
I
leave
it
to you, especially to the
young
ones, to
make use of your imaginations. Still, I always set Makar every evening as a guard before the house
off my broadsword. Sometimes Katawould pull it from me, hold it out with both hands on the hilt, and go tramping through the rooms, while the autumn rain beat on the window-panes. The loosely suspended tapestries were set in motion by the draught she made, so that the pictures seemed to breathe and bow. There was an echo every time when, with her black hat pulled
and never
left
rina in play
down
like
an old-fashioned morion, she shouted her

I
"Forward!" Then
built barricades of tables
and
gilded leather chairs, until in the midstof the assault

I leaped forth and overpowered both the amazon and her weapon. I had no longer any thought of my comrades, who meanwhile were perhaps hungering and bleeding, and my only wish was always to stay where I now found myself. Katarina always smelt of lavender. We had barred off a corner room for our share of the house.
FIFTY YEARS LATER

and thither she carried her big
chest,
151
which was
entirely plastered over with blue-checkered paper.
This contained her clothes and other belongings, and it never was opened without filling the room with lavender scent. It was her favorite diversion to lie on her knees in front of the chest, pull out all her garments with a multitude of small boxes and receptacles, and then pack them in again with the greatest care. When I found that too tedious, or the room sometimes grew too cold, I persuaded her to go out with me to the great hall, where we sat down by the stove. Then I tried to fasten her attention by telling the life history of my long broadsword, which I did not shorten by a word. I knew for sure that it had thedeath of eleven men on its conscience, and on mv arm I could show scars both of bulletgrazes and cuts. But she did not ask much about them. If I told the saga of Prince Gideon of Maxibrander, she grew impatient. "That is something that never happened," she said, and began eagerly to sew together green and red scallops of cloth on two fur boots, which were clearly intended to be-
come
a masterpiece of their kind.
The Herr Ensign lived in a continual booze and showed for the women the most open disdain.
Katarina found
fessed, because
class to
this, too,
it
very fortunate, she conin
was so hard for a person

if
her
reprove so high a gentleman,
he became
this,
attentive.
One morning,
in the
midst of
Herr
152
THE CHARLES MEN

called to
Ensign
the cellar, which

self with
mind the locked vault down in we had both forgotten. He went

it.
straightway there, and Katarina grew so beside her-
alarm that she could not conceal
Press-
ing both
my
hands, she begged and prayed

I
me
to
hold him back, and so completely was
then the
prisoner of my heart that, although all my previous doubts awoke to life again, I let myself be forced
to seek help for her.
We went down after Herr Ensign into the lighted

where he was already absorbed in breaking open a locked wooden door. " Let that alone! " I commanded him, and he assented, but kept on, nevertheless, with his immovable stubbornness, breaking and prying. Then I excused myself before my wailing folcellar,
lowers with the plea that a

I
common
could not
command
an
officer
and
soldier such as
at that
mo-
ment the door gave way. Within the vault a lamp burned under a gilded Russian Madonna, and beside a table with various sorts of food stood a made-up bed. Between the bed and the wall moved something round and dark, which, when we went nearer, showed itself to be the bent back of an old man. When the old man saw himself unearthed, hecrept forward, embraced Herr Ensign's knees, and begged and conjured him to
give pardon.
He
admitted that he was the mas-
FIFTY YEARS LATER

ter
153
of the house and that he had concealed himself after he had sent away his family, but promised to
be our most humble servant
life.
if
we had
pity
on
his
"Be
easy!" answered
I,
and helped the
totter-
up from the ground. "But then you shall be our drummer when we go to table." When we ate that evening in the great hall, Herr
ing old fellow
had the splendid chair, and beside and Katarina. At a table a little to the left stood the white-bearded and trembling master of the house with a brass mortar, and Makar with two pot-lids. They made their cooking utensils thunder in time to the melancholy folk-songs which ugly old Natalia sang, as she sat between the two on the edge of the table. I don't know why, but her wailing voice gradually robbed me of all my brisk gayety, and I began to think of my thousands upon thousands of absent comrades. I had between my vest and shirt a whole packet of letters which anxious relatives had written to their dear ones in the field, and which they had begged me to deliver to them, if I ever should get on to the king's camp. I drew the letters from my bosom. They were not secret, for I had received many of them unsealed on my last evening at Riga. I pushed the candlestick nearer, eyed* by chance a letter written in uncertain style, and read:
Ensign him sat
as usual
154
THE CHARLES MEN

this into the
Give
hands of John.
My
dere son:
Receive thy father's blessing, though separated from him by both land and watter, and right nere the heathenish parts of the urth, where crocodiles,
scorpions and other harmful crawling things strike
fere.
. . .
mayhap, but I felt my sacred responsibility, and my mind grew all the heavier. I noticed that Katarina pressed my foot more energetically than usual, but I pressed back and thought that it was only a love token. When at last I had laid the letters together, I discovered that she sat quite pale, and could not take any wine or food. I bent a little to one side, so that she might be able to whisper, but the old gentleman at the table stared at her unexpectedly, while he the more
I
drew
wry
face,
eagerly
let his
blows ring on the brass mortar, which

bell.
he held out like a

I
remained in doubt and did not know rightly what trick I should invent. Then I trumped up the excuse that I was freezing. I went into the sleepingroom and, after pretending to search in the dark awhile, called, " Katarina, my girl, where have you put the shee*pskin coat?" When she came in, she rushed straight up to me and threw herself on my neck with stifled sobbing.
FIFTY YEARS LATER

"
155
just
she whispered, " that Makar midst of the noise told the master that he had got together more than sixty of the serfs, and that, as soon as he gives them a signal by breaking the window in the great hall, they are coming in to cut down both of you."
You did n't hear,"

now
in the
remained
fairly cool
and sought to console
her,
choked with weeping, she told how she herself at the beginning was with the rest in wanting to entice us into a trap, but that she now no longer believed she could live on a day without me. I pressed her to me hard and kissed her burning mouth and throbbing temples, and yet in that moment a strange repose fell upon my soul. My acquaintance with her became all at once nearly as something in the past. I have since, in my gray years, regretted this bitterly and wondered at myself, who at that especial moment had so little to give her. Reading the letter, the sudden danger ... I don't know fully which was most to blame. To be sure, it depended on both. " If I could take you along," I stammered. She shook her head, as I could very clearly perceive in the half-light from the open door, and drew me instead to the window, where she begged me to
but,
steal off.
Then I lashed myself into a sort of pretended anger, threw her from me over the polished floor, and cried with raised voice, " For whom do
you take me, lass?"
156
THE CHARLES MEN

that
I
With
sight of
drew
into the great hall,
me
so,
broadsword and went out and when Herr Ensign got he rose from the table directly and
it
my
also drew.
Then
the master raised the mortar to throw
at
the misty window-pane, but
we stood
right in front
of him with our weapons, and his shaking knees became all the more bowed. He grew shorter and shorter, and the pestle rang between his fingers.
Natalia crossed herself in silence, and Makar, who saw his master ready to sink, supported him from behind under the elbows and let the pot-lids fall clattering to the floor. Every now and then he tried to snatch the pestle to throw It at the windowpane, but then the old man shut his hand around the shaft without daring to let it go. So we stood a long while facing one another, and
we heard
the kettle purr in the kitchen.
But soon we heard also the tap of steps, for the serfs had spied through the window from without and seen all. The kitchen door was filled with dirtgray sheepskin coats, on which a bright button glinted here and there. Then a shot rang out and blew the smoke over the shaggy hides. Now I wholly forgot our ensign game and shoved Long Jan aside so as to go at them for lifeand death, but just at this moment, even better than at any other time, was I to learn whom I had for a comrade.
He
stood
still,
obstinate as ever, seized
me
FIFTY YEARS LATER

'
157
around both arms and swung me aside with the irresistible strength which his thin limbs gathered, I don't know from where. " Ensign," said he, "if you have made yourself a private and me the ensign, then you ought also to know our custom in war that an officer goes first
into the firing."
Like
a thunderbolt he burst in
among the sheep-
hands held the blade that with one blow cut the lintel over his neck and with another peeled off the poor wretches' hides and clothes. I heard yet another shot, and saw axes and hay-forks. His right arm twitched and grew bloody, and he could now only wield his weapon with the other, but I was at his side, hewing and
flat
skin coats, and with his great
thrusting.
We were forced into one corner of the kitchen, and my inflated fool's mantle of cloth-of-silver was cut to pieces so that the black stubs of whalebone stuck out through the holes. Blackened with smoke so that he was unrecognizable, Long Jan tottered against my shoulder, and I took him by his uninjured hand and squeezed it in brotherly fashion with the words, "Now I 've learned what you amount to, Jan, and if we get out of this, we shall nevermore leave each other." He answered nothing. One eye was shut, the other was staring wide, and he fell heavily in front
of
me
to the floor.
158
THE CHARLES MEN

last
That was the

I
time
had so often laughed, and
saw Long Jan, at whom who had so often vexed
me, but to
ful
whom
was now glad to offer the respectI
grasp of a friend and an equal.
For
his
moment
body, but gradually
sought involuntarily to defend I perceived it would be
useless in that last forlorn hope.

I
moment
later
was groping around once more amid underbrush and mud, wet through with rain, and with a wound over one dexter finger. I had, however, the luck to stumble upon a detail of twenty other wandering Swedes, and climbed up
in a fir-tree to get with
my
eye to the kernel of the
far-stretching
glow that tinted the lowering sky above the wood. "What do you see?" asked my comrades. "I see pitch-black darkness. But if I shut my
eyes,
tile
I
see
still
more.
Then
I
see before
me
a hos-
sucks hard about our
soggy turf, which greedy for the honor of being the death-bed of a few poor wretches. Behind me I see the miles on miles of wilderness, where our brothers' corpses grow yellow beneath the fallen October leaves, where no hens cluck
see the
feet,
camp. Below
me
before the burnt homesteads, and no horse can find any food except the bark of twigs. But still farther away lies the sea, and beyond that I see a long road with tumble-down fences that climbs up to an old red-painted homestead. Within there, the
FIFTY YEARS LATER

while the venerable old
159
turnips have just been taken from the table, and
man opens
his leather Bible,
where
first
a black cock's feather lies as
marker
to the
into
Book of Revelation, he falls musing and wonders if we perchance have by

chapter of the
now got ahead with reinforcements to the king's camp, and if his dear boy may now be reading by
the
fire his
half illegible letter."

I I
Certainly
I
did n't say
all this at
that time, but
know
that
thought
it.
Katarina was already an
almost silenced memory.
"What do you see now?" asked my "You have climbed higher up."
Across the trees
I
comrades.
saw beacons or camp-fires hanging within the yellow mist like lumps of melted iron, and as I strained my eyes, the row of gray tentroofs in the light of the pitch beacons reminded me of a misty coast-line. "That glow," I whispered to my comrades, "is a great apple with many kernels, and we need to have our swords ready- But wait that was not Russian. Did n't vou hear the two outposts who called to each other? As sure as I live was not that our own beloved mother-speech? If I didn't seven
!
times hear 'devil,'
How
did
may the devil take me!" come down from the fir? Hiat
On all sides I shook outstretched hands and moved between blue and yellow coats from embrace to embrace. How many longed-for
hardly remember.
i6o
THE CHARLES MEN

I
embraces did
not have to give,

!
how many
ad-
ventures to describe
went about ever further into the camp, sometimes carried, sometimes dragged, sometimes met with ringing laughter, as they got sight of my ragged fool's-mantle, round which the projecting whalebones shook with every motion. Within me was a roar of joy. " I have a letter to Captain Bagge," I shouted.
I
"Shot long ago."

"I have
ant."
also a letter to Cederstjerne, Lieuten-
"Shot." I stumbled over a dead horse, which with its stiffened grin was almost scorched by a smouldering fire of logs. The rain had quenched the flames, and in the illuminated smoke behind the embers I saw a seated circle of grim-looking ofHcers. Among them lay on the ground at full length a man with a fur hood drawn down and a cape collar over his face. I wanted to step over him and waved my packet of letters, but a hand seized me by the shoulder and I was harshly stopped short by the words, "Are you out of your wits? Don't you see It is His Majesty?"
Then
struck
my
heels together as
to
raised the
hand with the packet

burst forth ran
my head, and down my cheeks.
the tears that
Captain
Hook
arose and finished his story as he
FIFTY YEARS LATER
i6i
bade good-night, but when he went out into the

entry, the others heard that he remained standing
on the winding stair. Then one of the servant-girls drew her holiday jacket about her and loosened the last stump of one branch candle from the round table. As she carried it, she held one hand underneath, so that no grease should fall on the straw. Thereupon she went out
carefully to light the captain, for they
he, a Charles
all
knew
that
man, was so afraid of the dark never dared go alone across the attic.
that he
The
Fortified
House
SURPRISED by the winter cold, the Swedes in

crowded confusion had taken up their quarters behind the walls of Hadjash. Soon there was not a house to be found that was not filled with the frostbitten and the dying. Cries of distress were heard out in the street, and here and there beside the steps lay amputated fingers, feet, and legs. Vehicles stood fastened to each other, so tightly packed from the
market-place that the chilly-pale streamed in from all sides, had to crawl between the wheels and runners. Buckled in their harness and turned away from the wind, the horses, their loins white with frost, had already stood many days without food. No one took care of them, and
city gate to the
soldiers, who
several of the drivers sat frozen to death with hands
Some wagons were like obwhere from the chink of the flat lid stared out mournful faces, which read in a prayer-book or gazed longingly with feverish delirium at the sheltering houses. A thousand unfortustuck into their sleeves.
long boxes or
coffins,
nates, in muffled tones or silently, cried to
God
for
Under the sheltered side of the city wall dead soldiers stood in lines, many with red Cossack coats
mercy.
buttoned over their ragged Swedish uniforms and

with sheepskins around their naked
feet.
Wood-
doves and sparrows, which were so stiff with frost that they could be caught with the hand, had fallen
THE FORTIFIED HOUSE
163
on the hats and shoulders of the standing corpses, and fluttered their wings when the chaplains went
by to give a Last Communion in brandy. Up at the market-place among burnt areas stood an unusually large house, from which could be heard soldier delivered a fagot to an enloud voices. sign who stood inthe doorway, and when the soldier went back into the street, he shrugged his shoulders and said to whomsoever cared to hear him: "It's only the gentlemen quarreling in the chancellery."
The ensign at the door had lately arrived with Lewenhaupt's forces. He carried the fagot into the room, and threw it down by the fireplace. The voices within ceased immediately, but as soon as he had closed the door, they began with renewed heat. It was His Excellency Piper who stood in the middle of the floor, his countenance wrinkled and furrowed, with glowing cheeks and trembling nostrils.
" I say that the whole affair " out, " madness, madness
!
is
madness," he burst
Hermelin, with
his
pointed nose, was constantly
twitching his eyes and his hands, while he sprang
back and forth in the room like a tame rat; but Field Marshal Rehnskiold, who, with his handsome, stately figure, was standing by the fireplace, only whistled and hummed. If he had not whistled and hummed, the quarrel would have been finished by
this
time, because for once
they were
all
fully
i64
THE CHARLES MEN

hummed
agreed; but the fact that he whistled and
instead of being silent or at least speaking, that
could beenduredno longer. Lewenhaupt
at the win-
dow took snuffand snapped shut
his snuff-box.
His
pepper-brown eyes protruded from his head, and it looked as if his comical peruke became ever bigger and bigger. If Rehnskiold had not continued to whistle and hum, he would have controlled himself to-day as yesterday and on all other occasions,
but
now wrath
rose to his brow.
mumbled between
last time, and do not ask that His Majesty should understand statesmanship. But can
He
shut his snuff-box for the

his teeth," I
he lead troops? Does he show real insight

single encounter or attack.?
at a
Trained and proved

are to
old warriors,
daily for an
who never
can be replaced, he offers
empty bravado. If our men
storm a wall, it is considered superfluous that they bind themselves protecting fagots or shields, and therefore they are wretchedly massacred. To speak freely, my worthy sirs, I can forgive an Uppsala student many a boyish freak, but I demand otherwise of a general in the field. Truly it avails not to carry on a campaign under the command of such
a master."
does not
" Furthermore," continued Piper, "His Majesty at present incommode you, general, with
any particularly hard command. At the beginning, before one man had succeeded in distinguishing
THE FORTIFIED HOUSE
165
himself more than another, it went better; but now His Majesty goes around mediatingand reconciling
with a foolish smile so that one could go crazy."
He
raised his
arms
in the air with a
wrath which
had was altogether at one with Lewenhaupt. While he was still speaking, he turned about and betook himself impetuously to the inner apartments. The door slammed with such a clatter that Rehnskiold found himself yet more called upon to whistle and hum. If he only had chosen to say something! But no, he did not. Gyllenkrook, who sat at the table and examined departure-checks, was blazing in the face, and a little withered-looking officer at his side whispered venomously into his ear: "A pair of diamond earrings given to Piper's countess might perhaps even yet help Lewenhaupt to new appointments." If Rehnskiold had now ceased to whistle and hum, Lewenhaupt would still have been able to control himself, to take up the roll of papers he carried under his coat and sit down at a corner of the table; but instead, the venerable and at other times taciturn man grew worse and worse. He turned about undecidedly and went toward the entrance door, but there he suddenly stood still, drew himself up, and smacked his heels together as if he had been a mere private. Now Rehnskiold became quiet. The door opened. An icy gust of
lost all
sense and bounds, notwithstanding he
i66
THE CHARLES MEN
wind rushed into the room, and the ensign announced with as loud and long-drawn a voice as a sentry who calls his comrades to arms: "Hi !" Majesty The king was no longer the dazzled and wondering half-grown youth of aforetime. Only the boyish figure with the narrow shoulders was the same. His coat was sooty and dirty. The wrinkle around the short, protruding upper lip had become deeper and rather morose. On the nose and one cheek he had frost-bite, and his eyelids were rededged and swollen with protracted cold, but around the formerly bald vertex of his head the combedback hair stood up like a pointed crown. He held a fur cap in both hands, and tried to conceal his embarrassment and diffidence behind a stiff and cold ceremoniousness, while bowing and smiling to each and all of those present. They bowed again and again still more deeply, and when he had advanced to the middle of the floor, he stood still and bowed awkwardly toward the sides, though with somewhat more haste, being apparently wholly occupied with what he was about to say. Thereupon he remained a long while standing quite
silent.
Then
tons.
he went forward to Rehnskiold and, with
a brief inclination,
took him by one of his coat butsaid,
"I would beg," he
"that Your Excellency
THE FORTIFIED HOUSE

provide
167
me
with two or three

little
men
of the
I
common
soldiers as escort for a
excursion,
have already
overrun with from Your
al-
two dragoons with me."

" But, Your
IVI
ajesty
the country
is
Cossacks.
To
ride in here to the city
Majesty's quarters with so small an escort was ready a feat of daring."
do
nonsense, nonsense! Your Excellency will have said. Some one of the generals present, who is at leisure, may also mount and take one of his men." Lewenhaupt bowed. The king regarded him a trifle irresolutely without answering, and remained standing after Rehnskiold hastened out. None of the others in the circle considered it necessary to break the silence or to move. Only after a very long pause did the king bow again to every one separately, and go out into the
"Oh,
as I
open
air.
"Well?"
inquired
Lewenhaupt and clapped
the
ensign on the shoulder with a return of his natural kindliness.

is
"The
ensign shall go along! This
the
first
time the ensign has stood eve to eye with

like that."
His Majesty."
" "
I
had never expected he would be

like that.
He is always
He is too kingly to com-
mand." rhey followed after the king, who clambered over
i68
THE CHARLES MEN

fallen animals.
His motions were agile, never abrupt, but measured and quite slow, so that heneverfor a momentlost his dignity. When hehad finally made his way forward through the throng to the city gate, he mounted to the saddle with his attendants, who were now seven men. The horses stumbled on the icy street, and some fell, but Lewenhaupt's remonstrances only induced the king to use his spurs yet more heartlessly. The lackey Hultman had read aloud to him all night or had related sagas, and had at length coaxed him into laughing at the prophecy that, had he not been exalted bv God to be a king, he would for his whole life have become an unsociable floor-pacer, who devised much more wonderful verses than those of the late Messenius of Disa on Bollhus, but especially
wagons and
the mightiest battle stories.
He
tried to think of
Rolf Gotriksson, who ever rode foremost of all his men, but to-day it did not please him to bound his thoughts within .the play-room of a saga. The restlessness, which during the last few days had struck its claws into his mind, would not let go of its royal prey. At the chancellery he had just seen the heated faces. Ever since the pranks of his boyhood he had
been wrapt
in his
own imaginary world of the
past.
He had sat deaf to the piercing cries of distress along

the way, while he became distrustful of each and
all
who
exhibited a
more
sensitive hearing.
To-day,
as
at other times,
he hardly noted that they offered
THE FORTIFIED HOUSE

him the
five
169
best-rested horse and the freshest cake of
morning they laid a purse with hundred ducats in his pocket, that the horsemen at the first melee would form a ring about him and offer themselves to that death which he had
bread, that in the
challenged.
On
the other hand, he noticed that the
soldiers saluted
him with gloomy
silence,
and mis-
fortunes had
made him
suspicious even of those
The most cautious opposition, the most concealed disapproval, he made a note of without betraying himself, and every word remained and gnawed at his soul. Every hour it seemed to him that he lost an officer on whom he had formerlv relied, and his heart became all the colder. His thwarted ambition chafed and bled under the weight of failure, and he breathed more lightly the farther behind him he left his headquarters. Suddenly Lewenhaupt came to a stand, debating within himself how to exercise an influence upon
nearest to him.
the king.
"
My heroicAjax!" said he, and patted
his
steam-
ing horse," you are indeed an old manger-biter, but
have no right to founder you for no good cause, and I mvself am beginning to get on in years as you are. But in Jesus' name, lads, let him who can follow
I
the king!"
When
"Be
he saw the ensign's anxious sidelong look
toward the king, he spoke with lowered voice: faithful, boy! His Majesty does not roar
I70
out as we
bicker."
THE CHARLES MEN others do. He is too kingly
to chide or
king feigned to notice nothing. More and ice and snow he kept up the silent horse-race without goal or purpose. He had now only four attendants. After another hour one of the
The
more wildly over
rider out of pity shot a bullet
remaining horses fell with a broken fore-leg, and the through its ear, after
foot,
which he himself, alone and on

an uncertain fate in the cold.
went
to
meet
man who was able and they had now come among bushes and saplings, where they could proceed but at a foot-pace. On the hill above them rose a gray and sooty house with narrow grated windows,, the courtyard being surrounded by a wall. At this moment there was a shot. " How was that? " inquired the king, and looked
At
last
the ensign was the only
to follow the king,
around.
"The
ear,
pellet piped nastily

it
when
it
went by
my
but
only
bit the
corner of my hat," answered
how he conduct himself before the king. He had a slight Smaland accent, and laughed contentedly with his whole blond countenance. Enchanted by the good fortune of being man by man with him whom he regarded as above all other living human beings, he continued: "Shall we then go up there and take them by the beard?"
the ensign, without the least experience of
ought
to
THE FORTIFIED HOUSE

gree,
171
I'he answer pleased the king in the highest de-
and with a leap he stood on the ground. "We'll tie our steeds here in the bushes," he said, exhilarated and with bright color on his cheek. "Afterwards let us go up and run them all through
as easily as whistling."
They
left
the panting horses and, bending forhill
ward, climbed up the

the wall looked
among
the bushes.
Over
down
several Cossack heads with
hanging hair, yellow and grinning as those of beheaded criminals. "Look!" whispered the king, and smote his hands together. "They 're trying to pull shut the
rotten gate, the fox-tails!"
His glance, but recently so expressionless, became now flickering and anon open and shining. He drew his broadsword and raised it with both hands above his head. Like a young man's god
he stormed in through the half-open door.
ensign,
The
who
cut and thrust by his side, was often
weapon. musket-shot blackened the king's right temple. Four men were cut down in the gateway, and the fifth of the band fled with a fire-shovel into the courtvard, pursued by the king. Then the king wiped ofi^ the blood from his sword on the snow, while he laid two ducats in the Cossack's shovel and burst out with rising spirits, " It is no pleasure to fight with these wretches
close to being struck from behind by his
172
THE CHARLES MEN
who never strike back and only run. Come back when you have bought yourself a decent sword." The Cossack, who understood nothing, stared
gate,
sneaked along the wall to the farther and farther away on the plain he called his roving comrades with a dismal and lamenting "Oohaho! Oohaho!" The king hummed to himself as if chaffing with an unseen enemy " Little Cossack man, little Cossack man, go gather up your rascals!" The walls around the courtyard were mouldering and black. From the wilderness sounded an endlessly prolonged minor tone as from an aeolian harp, and the king inquisitively shouldered in the door of the dwelling-house. This consisted of a single large and half-dark room, and before the fireplace lay a heap of blood-stained clothing, which plunderers of corpses had taken from fallen Swedes. The door was thrown shut again by the crossdraught, and the king went to the stable-buildings at the side. There was no door there, and a sound was now heard the moreplainly. Within in thedarkat the gold-pieces,
and
fled.
Ever
ness lay a starved white horse

in the wall.
bound to an
iron ring
A lifted broadsword would not have checked the

king, but the uncertain dusk caused the
the dark.
man of
imagination to stand on the threshold, fearful of
Yet he gave no
sign of this, but

in
beckoned
the ensign.
Thev stepped
down
a steep stairway
THE FORTIFIED HOUSE

to a cellar.
173
Here
there was a well, and at the

that
arm
brought up the Cossack, wholly of danger, deaf unaware water, a was driving around with whip and reins a human figure in the uniform of a Swedish officer. When they had loosed the rope and had bound the Cossack in the place of the prisoner, they recognized the Holsteiner, Feuerhausen, who had served as major in a regiment of dragoon recruits, but had been cut off by the Cossacks and harnessed as a draught animal for hoisting water. He fell on his knees, and stammered in broken Swedish: "Your Majesty! I gan't pelief my eyes
of the
creaking windlass
.
My
!
gratitude
"
Thekingcheerily interrupted his talk, and turned to the ensign " Bring up the two horses to the stable Three men cannot ride comfortably on two horses, and therefore we shall stay here till a few Cossacks come by, from whom we can take a new horse. Do you, sir, stand guard at the gate." After that the king went back to the dwellinghouse, and shut the door after him. The horses which, desperate with hunger, had been greedily gnawing the bark from the bushes, were meanwhile led up to the stable, and the ensign mounted guard. Slowly the hours went by. When it began to draw towards dusk, the storm increased in bitterness, and in the light of sunset the snow whirled over the desolate snow-plain. Deathly yellow Cos:
174
THE CHARLES MEN

in the
sackfacesraised themselves spy ingabove the bushes,
and borne
derers'
wind sounded the roving plunstable,
"Oohaho! Oohaho! Oohaho! " Then Feuerhausen stepped out of the

sat
between the horses so as not to get frost in his wounds from the ropes with which he had been bound. He went forward to the barred doors of the dwelling-house. " Your Majesty " he stammered, " the Cossacks are gathering more and more, and darkness is coming soon. I and the ensign can both sit on one horse. If we delay here, this night will be Your Mightiest Majesty's last, which Gott in His secret dispensa!
where he had
tion forbit
"
!
king answered from within, " It must be as we said. Three men do not ride comfortably on two
horses."
The
The
Holsteiner shook his head and went

is
down
to the ensign.
His Majesty, you damt Swedes. From heard him walk and walk back and forvart. Sickness and conscience-torture will come. Like a pater familiae the Muscovite czar stands among his subjects. A confectioner he sets up as his friend, and a simple servant-girl he raises to his glo-
"Such
the stable
rious imperial throne. Detestable are his gestures
when he
fois;
gets drunk,
first
but his
and he treats women a lafranand last wort always runs, For

'
Russia's goot!'
King Carolus
leafs
his
lants as
THE FORTIFIED HOUSE
175
smoking ash-heaps, and does not possess a single frient, not efen among his nearest. King Carolus is more lonely than the meanest wagon-drifer. He has not once a comrade's knee to weep on. Among nobles and fine ladies and perukes he comes like and a spectre out of a thousant-year mausoleum company. Is he mostly about witout go spectres a man of state? Oh, haf mercy! No sense for the public. Is he a general ? Good-by No sense for the big masses. Only to make bridges and set up gabi-
ons, clap his hants at captured flags and a couple
of kettledrums.
for
No
sense for state and army, only

also
men."
a
"That may be
sign.
sense," replied the en-
He walked vigorously
fingers
back and forward, for

stiff
his
were already so
with
cold
that
he
scarcely could hold his
drawn blade.
Holsteiner shifted the ragged coat-collar cheeks and went on with muffled voice around and eager gestures " King Carolus laughs with dehis
:
The
light
when
the bridge breaks, and
men and
is
beasts
are miserably drownt.
No
heart in his breast.
To
the deuce wit him!
King Carolus
such a
little
beats the
Swedish half-genius as wanders out in the work and drum and parades and makes a fiasco, and
the parterre whistles,
Whee!"
the Swedes go to death for
;
"And
that
is
why
him," answered the ensign
"that
is
just
why."
176
THE CHARLES MEN

!
Not angry, my dearest fellow Your teeth shone when we first met." to hear the Herr Major talk, but I 'm "I like freezing. Will not the major go up and listen at the
"
so in a laugh
king's door?"
The Holsteiner went up to
the door and listened.
When
soul.
he came back, he said, "

it
He
only walks and

in
walks, and sighs heavily like a
man
say.
anguish of
So
always
is
now, they
at night.
His Majesty
all life's
nefer sleeps any
more
The comedy-actor
bitter-
knows he
est.
is
not up to his part, and of
torments wounded ambition becomes the
"Then
it
should also be the
last for
us to jest
at.
Dare I beg the major to rub snow; it is getting numb."
my
right
hand with
The Holsteiner did as he desired, and turned back to the king's door. He struck his forehead with both hands. His gray-sprinkled, bushy moustaches stood straight out, and he mumbled, "Gott, Gott! Soon it will be too dark to retreat." The ensign called, "Good sir, I should like to ask if you would rub my face with snow. My cheeks are
freezing
stiff.
Of the pain
in
my foot
will
not speak.
Ah,
can't bear it."
The Holsteiner filled his hands with snow. "Let me stand guard," he said, "only for an hour." "No, no. The king has commanded that I stay
here at the entrance."
THE FORTIFIED HOUSE

"Och,
the king!
I
177
know him.
tell
I will
make him
cheerful, talk philosophy,
He
is
always amused to hear of a lover
of gallant exploits. who climbs
adventurously through a window. He often looks at the beautiful side of womankint. That appeals to his imagination, but not to his flesh, for he is
witout feeling.
Ant he
is
bashful. If the fair one
ever wishes to tread him under her silken shoe, she must herself attack, but pretent to flee, and all the
others must strive against the
liaison.
The most
grandmother, spoiled everything with her shriek of Marriage, marriage King Carolus is from top to toe like the Swedish queen Christina, though he is genuinely masculine. The two should have married each other on the same throne. Thatwould haf been a fine little pair. Oh,pfui,pfui you Swedes. If a man gallops his horses and lets people and kingdom be massacred, he is still purehearted and supreme among all, if only his bloot is too slow for amours. Oh, excuse me! I know purehearted heroes who were faithfully in love with two, three different maidens or wives in one and the same
mighty lady,
his
'
week." "Yes, we are so, we are so. But for Christ's pity you must rub my hand again. And excuse my moaning and groaning!" Just inside the gate, which could not be shut, lay the fallen Cossacks, white as marble with the hoar frost. The yellow sky became gray, and ever
178
nearer and
THE CHARLES MEN

more manifold
in
the twilight
sounded
the wailing cries,
Now
The
the
"Oohaho! Oohaho! Oohaho!" king opened his door and came down
across the court.
pains in his head, from which he had begun
had been increased by his ride in the wind and made his glance heavy. His countenance bore traces of lonely soul-strife, but as he drew near, his mouth resumed its usual embarrassed smile. His temple was still blackened after the musket-shot. "It 's freshening up," he said, and producing from his coat a loaf of bread, he broke it in three, so that every one had as large a piece as he did. After that, he lifted off his riding-cape, and fastened it himself
to suffer,
about the shoulders of the sentinel ensign. Abashed over his own conduct, he then took the Holsteiner forcibly bv the arm and led him up through the courtyard, while they chewed at their hard bread. Now, if ever, thought the Holsteiner, is the time to win the king's attention with a clever turn of speech, and afterwards talk sense with him. "The accommodation mightbe worse," he began, at the same time biting and chewing. "Ah, good old davs That reminds me of a gallant adventure outside of Dresden." The king kept on holding him by the arm, and the Holsteiner lowered his voice. The story was lively and salacious, and the king grew inquisitive.
!
THE FORTIFIED HOUSE
179
The coarsest allusions always lured out his set smile.
He listened with a despairing and half-absent man's

need of momentary diversion. Only when the Holsteiner with cunning deftness began to shift the conversation over to some words about their immediate danger did the king again
become
at all
serious.
is nothing worth mentioning, except that we must behave ourselves well and sustain our reputation to the last man. If the rascals come on, we will all three place ourselves at the gate and pink them with our
" Bagatelle, bagatelle!" he replied. "It
swords."
The
around.
Holsteiner stroked his forehead and felt He began to talk about the stars that were
just shining out.
He
set forth a
theory for measur-
ing their distance from the earth.
The
king now
lis-
tened to him with a quite different sort of attention.
broke into the question keenly, resourcefully, and with an unwearied desire to think out new,
surprising methods in his own way. One assertion gave a hand to another, and soon the conversation dwelt on the universe and the immortality of the soul, to return afresh to the stars. More and more of them flickered in the heavens, and the king described what he knew about the sun-dial. He stood up his broadsword with its scabbard in the snow and directed the point toward the Polestar, so that next morning they might be able to tell the time.
He
i8o
THE CHARLES MEN

heart of the universe," he said,
"The
"must be
either the earth or the star that stands over the land
of the Swedes. No land must be of more account than the Swedish land."
Outside the wall the Cossacks were calling out, but as soon as the Holsteiner led the talk to their threatened attack, the king was laconic. "At daybreak we shall betake ourselves back to Hadjash," said he. "Before then we can hardly secure a third horse, so that each of us can ride comfortably in his
own
saddle."
After he had spoken in that strain, he went back

into the dwelling-house.
stride to the ensign,
down with a vehement and pointing at the king's door, he cried out, " Forgif me, ensign. We Germans don't mince words when a wount oozes after a rope, but I lay down my arms and gif you, sir, the victory, because I also could shed my bloot for the man. Do I lofe him! No one efer understands him that has not seen him. But, ensign, you cannot stay any
Holsteiner came
longer out
in
The
the weather."
The ensign replied, "No cape has warmed me more sweetly than the one I now wear, and I lay all my cares on Christ. But in God's name, major, go back to the door and listen! The king might do himself some harm." " His Majesty would not fall on his own sword,
but longs for another's."
THE FORTIFIED HOUSE

"Now
lonelv.
I
i8i
hear his steps even

still
I
down
here.
They
is
are getting
more
violent and restless.

in
He
so
When
saw him
Hadjash bowing and

I
bowing among the generals,
could only think,
How
alife,
lonely he is!"
little
"If the
he
will
away from here always remember the steps we heard

Holsteiner
slips
call this
to-night and always
refuge Fort Garten."
The
ensign nodded his approval and answered,
"Go
and shelter awhile between the horses. And there through the walls you can better hear the king and watch over him." Thereupon the ensign began to sing with resoto the stable, major,
rest
and seek
nant voice:
O Father^
The
to
Thy loving grace
Holsteiner went back across the court into
the stable and, his voice quavering with cold, in-
toned with the other:

In every time
and
it
every place
My poor
" Oohaho
!
weak
"
soul ivould I
commend.
Lord., receive
and defend.
answered the Cossacks in the was already night. The Holsteiner squeezed himself in between the two horses, and listened till weariness and sleep bowed his head. Only at dawn was he wakened by a clamor. He sprang out into the open air, and be!
Oohaho
it
storm, and
i82
THE CHARLES MEN
held the king already standing in the court, looking
sword that had been set up as a sun-dial. the Cossacks had collected, but when they saw the motionless sentry, thev shrank back in superstitious fear and thought of the rumors concerning the magic of the Swedish soldiers against blow and shot. When the Holsteiner had gotten forward to the ensign, he grasped him hard by the arm.
at the
By the gate
"What
At
the
now.?" he asked. "Brandy?"
same
instant he let
go
his grip.
The
hilt,
ensign stood frozen to death with his back

in the king's cloak.
against the wall of the gate, his hands on his sword-
and wrapped
now only two," the king remarked, drawing his weapon out of the snow, "we can at once betake ourselves each to his horse, as it was
arranged."
" Since we are
The
Holsteiner stared him right
in the
eyes with
reawakened hate and remained standing, as if he had heard nothing. Finally, however, he led out the horses, but his hands trembled and clenched themselves, so that he could hardly draw the saddle-girths. The Cossacks swung their sabres and pikes, but
the sentry stood at his post.
Then
the king sprang carelessly into the saddle,
and set his horse to a gallop. His forehead was clear, his cheeks were rosy, and hisbroadswordglimmered like a sunbeam.
THE FORTIFIED HOUSE

The
pression relaxed, and he
teeth, while he too
183
Holsteiner looked after him. His bitter ex-
murmured between
to the saddle
his
hand
death.
lifted to his
and with hat raced by the sentry: "It is

hero in seeing a hero's noble
mounted
only the jov of
Thanks, comrade!"
Clean White Shirt
PRIVATE Bengt Geting had got a Cossack's

pike through his breast, and his comrades laid
a heap of twigs in a copse, where Pastor Rabenius gave him the Holy Communion. This was on the icy ground before the walls of Veperik, and a whistling norther tore the dry leafage from
him on
the bushes.
"The Lord
softly
be with thee!" whispered
Rabenms
and paternally. "Are you prepared now to depart hence after a good day's work?" Bengt Geting lay with his hands knotted, bleeding to death. The hard eyes stood wide open, and the obstinate and scraggy face was so tanned by sun and frost that the bluish pallor of death shone out
only over his
lips.
"No," he said. "That is the first time
have heard a word from
your mouth, Bengt Geting." The dying man knotted his hands all the harder, and chewed with his lips, which opened themselves for the words against his will. "For once," he said slowly, "even the meanest and raggedest of soldiers may speak out." He raised himself painfully on his elbow, and ejaculated such a piercing cry of anguish that Rabenius did not know whether it came from torment
of soul or of body.
A CLEAN WHITE SHIRT
185
He
set
down
the chalice on the ground, and

it,
spread a handkerchief over
so that the leaves

fall
which were tumbling about should not

brandy.
into the
"And
shall
this,"
he stammered, pressing
I,
his
hands
to his forehead, "this
who am
a servant of Christ,
ing,
evening
be constrainedtowitness, morning after mornafter evening."

all
Soldiers crowded forward from
sides
between
man, but their captain came in a wrathful mood with sword drawn. "Tie a cloth over the fellow's mouth!" he shouted. "He has always been the most obstinate man in the battalion. I am no more inhuman than another, but I must do my duty, and I have a mass of new and untrained folk that have come with Lewenhaupt. These have got scared by his wailing, and refuse to go forward. Why don't you obey ?
I
the bushes to see and hear the fallen
command
here."
Rabeniustook a step forward. On his curled white peruke he had a whole garland of yellow leaves. " Captain," he said, " beside the dying the servant of God alone commands,but in glad humility he delivers his authority to the dying man himself For three vears I have seen Bengt Geting march in the line, but never yet have I seen him speak with any one. Now on the threshold of God's judgment-seat may no one further impose silence upon him." " With whom should I have spoken?" asked the

i86
"
bleeding
THE CHARLES MEN trooper bitterly. " My tongue
is
as if tied
and lame. Weeks would go by without my saying a word. No one has ever asked me about anything. It was only the ear that had to be on guard so that I did not fail to obey. 'Go,' they have said, 'go through marsh and snow.' To that there was nothing to answer."
Rabenius knelt and softly took his hands in his. "But now you shall speak, Bengt Geting. Speak,
speak,
are
now that all are gathered to hear you. You now the only one of us all who has the right to
to send a message?
speak. Is there a wife or perhaps an aged mother

at
home to whom you want me
mother starved me and sent me to the troops, and never since then has a woman had anything else to say to me than the same, 'Get away, Bengt Geting, go, go What do you want with us?'" "Have you then anything to repent?"
!
"My
"
repent that as a child
did not
jump
into the
and that, when you stood before the regiment on Sunday and admonished us to go patiently on andon, I didn't stepforwardandstrikeyou down with m V musket, But do you want to know what causes me dread ? Have you never heard the wagondrivers and outposts tell how in the moonlight they have seen their comrades that were shot limp in crowds after the army and hop about on their mangled legs and cry, 'Greetings to mother!'
mill-race,
They
call
them the Black
Battalion. It's into the
A CLEAN WHITE SHIRT

Black Battalion that
is
I
187
'm
to
that
shall be buried in
my ragged
go now. But the worst coat and my
bloody shirt. That 's the thing I can't get out of my mind. A plain trooper does n't want to be taken homelike the dead General Liewen,but I 'm thinking of the fallen comrades at Dorfsniki, where the king had a coffin of a couple of boards and a clean white shirt given to each man. Why should they be
treated so
misfortune a
ly
much better than I ? Now in this year of man is laid out as he falls. I 'm so deepin the
sunk in misery that the only thing

I
world
that
can be envious of
is
their clean white shirts."
"
My
poor friend," answered Rabenius quietly,
have great company. Gvldenstolpe and Sperling and Lieutenant-Colonel Morner already lie shot on the field. And do you recall the thousand others? Do vou remember the friendly Lieutenant-Colonel Wattrang, who came riding to our regiment and gave an apple to every soldier, and who now lies among the Royal Dragoons, and all our comrades under the meadow at Holofzin ? And do you remember my predecessor, Nicholas Uppendich,a mightv proclaimer of the Word, who fell at Kalisch in his priestly array? Grass has grown and snow fallen over his mould, and no one can point out with his foot the sod where he sleeps." Rabenius bowed vet deeper, and felt the man's forehead and hands.
will
you
"in the Black Battalion
if
you believe
in
it
now
"
i88
THE CHARLES MEN
" In ten or at most fifteen minutes you will have ceased to live. Perhaps these minutes might replace
if you sanctify them rightly. no longer one of us. Don't you see that your spiritual guide is lying on his knees by you with head uncovered? Speak now and tell me your last wish no, your last command. Consider but one thing. The regiment is disorganized on your account, and meanwhile the others go forward with glory or stand already on the storming-ladders. You have frightened theyounger fellows with your death-wound and your wailing, and you alone can make it good again. Now they listen only to you, and you alone have it in your power to make them go against the enemy. Consider that yourlast words will be last forgotten, and perhaps sometime will be repeated for those at home, who sit and roast their
the past three years,

are
You
potatoes behind the oven."
Bengt Geting
raised his
lay motionless,
and
shadow of
he gently
perplexity passed over his glance.
Then
arms as
if for
an invocation and whispered,

!
" Lord, help
me
to
do even so
He
gave a sign that now he was able only to
whisper, and Rabenius laid his face to his so as to be able to hear his words.
Then Rabenius motioned

trembled so that he
to the soldiers, but his voice
could hardly make himself heard. " Now Bengt Geting has spoken," he
is
his last wish, that
said. " This vou should take him between
A CLEAN
WHITE SHIRT
189
in his
you on your muskets and carry him with you

marched day
after
old place in the line, where he has stubbornly
day and year
after year."
The drums now struck

diers
up, the music began, and
with his cheek on the shoulder of one of the sol-
Bengt Geting was carried forward step by step over the field toward the foe. Around him followed the whole regiment, and ever with bared head Rabenius went behind him, and did not notice that he was already dead. "I shall see to it," he whispered, "that you get a clean white shirt. You know that the king does
notregardhimselfas more than thehumblestsoldier,
and
it is
so that he himself wishes sometime to lie."
Poltava
ON
itive
of May Field Marshal Rehnskiold gave an evening dinner, and Colonel Appelthe
first
gren became heated about the forehead and inquis; he rolled bread-crumbs with his fingers and looked cross-eyed. "Can Your Excellency say why Poltava has to
be besieged?
"
Poles and Tartars
"His Majesty wants to have amusement till come with reinforcements."
the
"And nevertheless we knowthat

is
neitherof them
coming. Europe begins to forget our courts la Diogenes with riding ministers of state, fighting
chancellor's clerks, chamberlains falling in battle,
honor on tree stumps and with palaces of tent-cloth, and pancakes and small beer on
seats of
,
the royal table."
" His Majesty wishes to practise fortifications
now, and
rest
is
getting the habit of camping out for the

life.
of his
is
tava
a little flea fortress,
So we have time ahead of us. Polwhich will probably surfirst
render
when
field
the
shot cracks."
silent,
The
marshal became abruptly
and
dropped his fork. "I believe those fellows in the town have gone crazy, and are going to defend themselves." He sprangout and threw himself into the saddle. All arose and heard a continuous firing.
POLTAVA
The
191
Russian sentries around the walls had the custom of shouting long and noisily in the darkness, "Good bread, good drink!" During this screaming. Colonel Gyllenkrook, without any one
being able to hear his approach, had begun to open
trenches,
and had
set
up
a cover, but at that
mo-
ment the king
ran over the field, and shouted aloud
something to his adjutant-general. The fact that he held his drawn broadsword prevented him from looking ridiculous as he ran. Gyllenkrook asked
him not to cry out so loud so as not to alarm the enemy, but even while he was speaking, the outposts were silent, and began instead tolight theirport-fires and shoot. Fire-balls that rose aloft threw their light over the hills and meadow-land, and were reflected
hurrying watersof the Vorskla. Gyllenkrook's laboring Zaporogeans then sprang back from their
in the
spades and gabions, and the Swedish soldiers, who thumped on their leather coats with the flat of the
sword,
at
last
began themselves
to
flee
or to
lie
down on
the ground.
In that way the shooting had begun. " Look there " said Gyllenkrook, who stood be!
hind a tree with the king and the Little Prince. "A small cause may bring about such a big confusion,
and
for the last time
dare propose that the whole
siege be given up. In
my
prayers unite the tired

subjects at
troops and
all
the
unhappy
home.
Why
when
were we not
commanded
hither in the winter,
192
THE CHARLES MEN

Now
the
is
the town might have been easily taken?

garrison
strengthened every day, and the enemy's
whole army is on the advance. We have barely thirty cannon left, and the powder, which has many times been wet and dried again, only casts the shot a little way from their muzzles." "Nonsense, nonsense! Why, we've shot away
many
a log thicker th?,n a scaling-post."
" But here we need to shoot away

dreds."
many hun-
"If we can shoot away one, we can shoot away We must perform just what is extraordinary, so that we get reputation and honor from it. Now we shall let the Zaporogeans see that they can work here without the least danger." The king stuck his broadsword under his arm, and went out into the rain of shot on the field. Behind him followed the Little Prince, pale, erect, festal as a youth in an ancient procession to a sacrihundreds.
fice at
the temple.
thick logs were driven
Two
took
down
like
two gate-
posts close to the open trench, and there the king
light brilliance
behind a fallen fire-ball, whose dayexposed him to the enemy. The Little Prince gave him a hesitating side-look, and felt up and down his sword-hilt with his hand, which trembled a little. After that he climbed up on one of the logs and took a position with his arms at his side. Then a junior officer, who was called Morhis stand
POLTAVA
ten Preacher, stepped
193
log.
up on the other
hair,
He
had a face brown as leather, black

statues in
and brass
rings in his ears. Motionless as two painted
wooden
the two
some Catholic country
district,
guards stood in this way behind their king, and the furious Russians directed their catapults and field-
and muskets at the remarkable spectacle. No onewished to humble himself and descend first, and for that reason they had to stay. There was whistling and swishing as of whips and rods, as of stormgusts and pipes, while cannon-balls, striking near, threw gravel and clods on high. It lightened and thundered, the ground trembled like a frightened horse, and splinters and bits of stone whirled
pieces by.
king is there! Now he '11 be shot!" cried the soldiers, rushing forward and driving the Zaporogeans among them. Again they seized the spades, and again the Zaporogeans tore up the turf and opened the earth, so that thev could lie down and
"The
get shelter.
In the light of the burning pitch stood the
mon-
arch of the generals and dignitaries, the comrade of the soldiers, at once knight errant, king, and philosopher. All day long dark memories had slunk in
his footsteps.
He
recalled
Axel Hard,
whom
he
himself had killed bv accident, and Klinckowstrom,

the friend of his vouth, shot dead. He felt tiie loss of neither, but he could not forget their bloody
194
THE CHARLES MEN
heaven-storming gayety of boyhood, however, awoke to life and silenced the heavy thoughts, when one heard the bullets. He had drained the cup of warlike adventure to the bottom, and the drink needed to be spiced more strongly everyday to have relish. He began to see the great
clothes. All the
clamorous victories in a colder light as they became rarer. To be sure he could still sometimes talk about ruling great states, but that was mostly so that these should provide him daily with a hundred more gallant guardsmen. He never forgot that any moment might be his last, but the years of misfortune were come. How sweet would not repose be after a glorious death To will, to know he had the power, but yet to fail and become a mockery, because the others could no longer, follow that was the breath of frost from the autumn of life. He wished to prove, he wished to show, that he was still the exceptional man under God's protection. If he were not that, then he wished to fall like the plainest soldier. Morten Preacher meanwhile grew so excited that he could not hold himself motionless on the pillar, but shifted the musket from his back. Who did not
!
know Morten Preacher, the sharpshooter, who could make even the king clap his hands? Either
an infantryman or a cavalryman he could bring
down
the
in full career.
He
weapon
to his eve,
muttered and laughed, laid and shot at a shadow that

Struck by the
climbed
in the farthest cherry-tree.
"
POLTAVA
ball,
it
195
tumbled down among the blossoming twigs like a bird. Then a hunter's enthusiasm came over Morten Preacher, and he hopped down and sprang
to the spot.
an old man, shot dead, and beside him stood a little girl of nine years. "That 's father," she said without crying, and looked at Morten Preacher. " were out picking
lay nettles,
There
and on the way home ?" "Well, on the way home "We heard shooting, and then father climbed
to look around. That is Morten Preacher shook
father's cherry-tree."
his head,
We
up
took off
his
hat and tore at his hair, and sat down.
"God forgive me the old man has never done me any harm. Dear child you cannot understand this. But I have a ducat in my pocket. Take it! You see, my child, I'm a hunter, you understand, a regular old expert hunter. Formerly I had my cottage and my sweetheart, who quarrelled and struck at me because I never moved my spade you know
woods and listened to the blackcock's song. Hearken now! Then one morning I took my musketoon and my dog and went my way out into the world."
what
a
spade
is?
but only
sat in the
The girl
fire,
turned over the ducat in the light of the
but he drew her to his knee, and stroked her
softly
"
When
on the cheeks. I had gone along so the
first
day,
shot
"
196
the dog.
THE CHARLES MEN

When
I
had gone another day,
gave the
gun
that
to a forester
I
who showed me
the way. After
had nothing." "Can one buy coppers for it?" "Surely, surely. So when I joined the army like that and got me a war musket, then, as you may believe, I became a hunter again. But Heaven have pity! You shall come here every evening in the dusk, and then you shall get half of my day's rations and all I can pick up." She stared at the musket in the grass, so he rose and went, leaving it there. "The girl can't know that it was I who fired the You are shot, and she shall never get to know it. a Judas, who has robbed an innocent man of life.
Thou
field.
shalt not kill
Thou
shalt not kill
He held
who
lay
his forehead
Then he came
around
a
and tottered away over the Dragoons, log fire and read prayer-books,
to d'Albedyhll's to read, until finally he be-
and there he sat
down
gan to pray aloud and preach.
"What news?"
Gotlander,
the soldiers asked next

little
of Brakel's red-haired sutler, a
morning knowing West
who stood
in his
gray blouse
among
the
pots and hung-up clothes. " News? Morten Preacher must have had a sunstroke in the middle of the night and become ripe
for the fool's locker. to the river
and
He goes bare-headed down shouts. When the preacher's fever
POLTAVA
sets in
197
on him, he always says he has been out and
shot somebody."
In gloomy silence the soldiers received tin bowls hardly half
full.
Why don't we go ahead and storm before it's too late?" " The king is working with ditches, and Gyllenkrook has to stand by the work night and day. Just listen to Morten Preacher now down by the water! Here has been praying and psalm-singing lately so that it makes one warm at heart to hear the field marshal go on the rampage," At dusk Morten Preacher slunk away to the cherry-tree, where the little nine-year-old stood already waiting with her smooth flaxen, almost white hair and her serious face. He had with him his day's rations, and he gave her his last kopek for the promise that he might kiss her on both cheeks. "Is your mother living.^" She shook her head. "What's your name?"
"Bread or dead.
" Dunya,"
He
she
wanted
a
to kiss her again
on the cheeks, but
moved
away,
"Give me
kopek
first!"
He
went back
to the
camp
and begged kopek

is
pieces of all whom he met. " I will watch over her when there
storming.
198
THE CHARLES MEN

is
by from my pay, so that one day she will have something Why should she not get marto get married on.
like a little, little princess. I will lay
I have, to be sure, my wife have a sweetheart in the baggagetrain, too. And it seems I'm a murderer. Surely a little princess shall marry!" He had made a copy of St. John's Gospel and, sitting down, he read aloud from it to d' Albedy hll's Dragoons. All the plants of spring flamed up over the hilly meads down to the yellowish banks of the Vorskla, but the soldiers looked only toward Poltava, which shone out through clumps of forest with its white cloister walls, its wooden towers, palisades, and ramparts, on which young and old men, women, and children had thrown up a breastwork of sacks filled with earth, of wagons, bundles of twigs, and barrels. "What's the news? Will they never lead us against the foe ? " the soldiers inquired of the sutler. "The foe is so kind as to come to us instead," he answered, and dried his forehead with his blouse.
She
ried?
Surely, surely!
I
at
home, and
"In
the night
heard
is
how he
rolled his field-pieces.
The heavy
firing
not from the Swedes, for we
have no other cannon-balls left than those which up out of the ground. It 's the czar's whole army that 's already standing on the other side of the river," Then came Major-General Lagercrona, spurring
the Zaporogeans pick
POLTAVA
his horse
in the foot.
199
and shouting that the king was wounded

Beside the royal
litter
the field marshal
pointed out the situation of the seventeen redoubts
which the enemy had already begun to throw up of Pietruska. "What's the news?" muttered the soldiers daily around the sutler. " If there's nothing else that any one offers, then I 'm the richer," answered he, and pointed with his ladle around the verdant landscape. "The king has got mortification in his wound. The brandy is done.
at the village
The bread
day
is
but then
done.
've a little porridge for
you
to-
that's done.
The enemy
has barred
us in and disputes our retreat. Oh, the devil, the

devil! It's only the
bitter days."
Swedes that can stand such
He stamped on the turf, put the ladle to his eye, and aimed like an assassin at the king's battered cabin, but the heroic, frost-bitten heads around him
lowered their eyes. "Thou shalt not
kill!"
whispered
Morten
Preacher with upraised arms. So passed the month of May, and the heat of
June shone in through the tent-cloths. The soldiers sat in a row and twined wreaths for midsummerpoles, but did not talk.
They thought
of the pas-
tures at
home, of the
little
cottages, of the wide, wide
moors.
On
Sunday, a
before evensong,
Morten
200
THE CHARLES MEN

little
Preacher slipped to the grove, where

in return for
Dunya,
a basket
some kopeks, handed him

half-ripened cherries.
with the
first
He
ate
them
along with her, patted her small hands, and played

with her, carrying her like a child, but he could not
get her to smile.
For
his last
kopek he was allowed
to kiss her three times
on the cheeks.
came back there was clamor and unrest. Officers inspected the soldiers' equipment and thumped on their swords, which here and there were so ground that they were like worn scythes. Brakel's sutler pulled together his empty pans. The
he
When
king had resolved to deliver
battle.
On
the grassy banks outside the king's
window
There
the generals and colonels were already sitting to receive their divisions and written instructions.
sat the
melancholv Lewenhaupt with his great clear eves and a littleLatin pocket lexicon stuck between the buttons of his coat. There sat the gallant Creutz with hands crossed over the pommel of his sword, and Sparre and Lagercrona carried on a noisy conversation in loud tones. Colonel Gvllenkrona stood by the table, bent over his fortification drawings, with which he appeared to be so fascinated that he did not notice the others in the least, but occupied himself instead with carefully and slowly flicking the grains of sand from his beloved sketches. Leaning back a little by thedoor,in the worst of tempers, stood the field marshal himself with his pointed.
POLTAVA
somewhat turned-up nose and ple-red girl's mouth.
his
201
puckered, pur-
In the dusk began the march with furled banners and without music, and the king's litter was set down for a while in a grove in advance of the lifeguards. From the field were heard sounds of the enemy knocking and hammering on their palisades as upon waiting scaffolds. The band of Charles men, once so proud, had now so little shot and powder that they could not bring along to the encounter more than four poor field-pieces, and now when they heard hammer-blows so near, manv
among
the scarred warriors were seized with cor-
poral fear and vainly offered a ducat for a swallow
of brandy.
It
was the
v^-ane
horses stood saddled, and the

kets or carbines at their side.
fantry regiments was heard
of the moon. The men had their musFrom one of the in-
pering, as the
murmuring and whischaplain distributed the Communion,

grope with
the
his left
and he had
soldiers.
to
ness to put the chalice to the
hand in the darkmouths of the kneeling

beside which the king
Around
litter,
had stuck his broadsword into the earth, the generals had lain down tor a moment in their cloaks, and Piper sat on a drum with his back against a tree. To break the force of [gloomy thoughts and avoid one another, they began a philosophic dis-
202
course with
THE CHARLES MEN the king. He sat in a circle of ponderers

like a
and taught
haupt, the
master in his school, and Lewen-
honest old Latinist colonel, recited
Roman
verses.
When
he ceased, he took a burning torch from
the attendants and threw the light on the king,
whose head had slid to one side. Piper and all the generals arose and forgot their spite, so beautiful appeared to them the. aspect of the sleeper. His hat lay on his knee, and the coverlet was folded about the hurt and bandaged foot. The emaciated and fever-wasted countenance with the frost-bites on nose and cheek had become even smaller than before, and harderand moreset. Yellowish and humid, it was already shadowed by a premature old age, but there was a drawing and twitching of the lips. It looked as though he was dreaming. The king of the Charles men dreamed that he saw an endless line of giggling and tittering folk, who went hurriedly past and held their hands before their faces to hide how they laughed at him. Sometimes they were bright green or blue, and they shone
like lighted lanterns. Finally,on a sweating bay, there
came
a tall
man who was
completely clad
in
dusty
"Begone! you bald and lame Swede," he cried, guffawing from the back of his horse. "In this very place, three hundred years ago, the hordes of Tamerlane cut down the united armies of the West. What would you do to me and my ocean of
silk taffeta.
POLTAVA
men
with your
last
203
thinned-out regiments and your
four field-pieces?
a plank, but
My men are thieves and drunken

me
than nails
nails.
I
miscreants, and are of less use to

I
in
make good
the
use of such
sail
am
I
building at a great ship to
the centuries, and

as
myself
am
still
same to-day
when
stood at
Saardam. Millions upon millions shall bless my work." The king would have answered, but he found that his tongue was paralyzed. Lewenhaupt knelt with bared head, and touched
trade, a simple carpenter in
my
him on the shoulder. "My most gracious lord, day dawning, and I call down God's protection over your noble person and actions." The glow of morningalready burned between the tree trunks, and the king opened his eyes. Straightis
way he grasped his broadsword. As soon as he noted the many men who stood around him and the bearded cavalry chaplain Norberg and all the attendants, his expression changed, and he nodded
with his usual chilly friendliness
still
but the dream

"An
stood out clear in his thoughts.

that the others, too,
is
him
It seemed must have seen it.
to
"What
kingdom?" he
said.
accident,
a far-stretching estate with fortresses at the outly-
ing farms. Battles and negotiations

aries.
move the bound-
And yet, czar, supposing you have power over millions but not over yourself ?The Lord God may
so ordain that
men
shall
one day inquire
less
con-
"
204
THE CHARLES MEN

all
cerning states, but

uals. If I
the
more concerning
individ-
conquer you, your whole ship takes fire and becomes ashes, but if you cut down me and my men, you only fulfil thereby the victory of my achievements." Lewenhaupt gripped Creutz by the arm, and whispered mournfully: "Dear brother, dark forebodings will not slip from my mind. Shall we all ever again stand together under God's free heaven ? Hark how the field marshal swears and curses behind the Upplanders.Gyllenkrook won't even go forward to him and ask for orders. You are holding back, too. And look how haughtily Piper is glowering after
us
I
"The Swedes
For done, and
other.
their
always look haughtily at one an-
that reason they will
some day be unpeoples.
name
erased
among
Our
children in the tenth or twentieth generation will

see the time.
To-day
is
only the beginning."

!
"The Lord pardon your words Never did I see more glorious champions of God than the Swedes,
and never a people so wholly
free
from the
will.
self-
assurance and rough hands of a despotic
The
kingisnowtooill tohold us together longer, though he pretends to be as confident as a young cornet. He
was given
at birth the recklessness
lend their favorites, but
now
which the gods
"Now?"
"Now
he has got the impenetrable and over-
POLTAVA
ness hardens
205
mastering delusion to which the favorite's reckless-
when the gods abandon him." Lewenhaupt pressed his hat on his head and
drew
his sword, but turned yet again to Creutz and whispered: "Perhaps men such as I with my care forthe rank and file, and Gyllenkrook with his com-
pass-case and
redoubts adorned with palisades, have never all this time understood him
all
his
rightly.
You
with your broadsword have blindly

it
obeyed.
May
be granted us
all
to-day to
fulfil
his mission with
him, for
foresee that he
vives the eveningwill envy the brothers
who surwho by then
have entered into eternal blessedness." The riders now sprang into the saddle. Lewenhaupt went to his foot-regiments, and in the h'ght of daybreak they saw before them the expectant field. It was black. It was already burnt. It was a heap of ashes, which without flower or grass-blade vanished between clumps of trees into the barren steppes. It was so level that a cannon-carriage could easily be driven back and forth. Out in front of the largest Russian redoubt came
a red-clad rider,
who
fired off his pistol.
Then
the
enemv let
all
their
drums beat behind
the outworks,
on which appeared innumerable troops of soldiers and standards and catapults and field-pieces. Immediatelv the Swedish music answered throughout
all
the regiments.
The
indomitable Axel Sparre and Karl Gustaf
2o6
THE CHARLES MEN

in front
Roos rushed
talions,
of the army with their batfield
and stormed the
redoubts. Horses
snorted, harness creaked, swords and carbines clattered,

trees
and ashes and dust fell over the clumps of so that the green was quenched on the leaf-
age.
The king sent Creutz with the left wing after the conquering Sparre, and behind the captured entrenchments the enemy's cavalry rushed in flight toward the swampy meadows by the Vorskla. On the other side Lewenhaupt advanced with his infantry, occupied two redoubts,and disposed himself to attack the enemy's camp from the south with the bayonet. There the confusion was so great that women began to harness horses to the baggage wagons, but the czarina, a tall womanof some twenty years with a high bosom, white forehead, and deeply colored cheeks, still stood out by the wounded among her bandage-strips and water-flasks with an almost haughty tranquillity. Meanwhile the generals collected around the Swedish king's litter, which was borne along not far from the East Gotland infantry regiment and set down by a bog. Here a halt was commanded, and a crowd with deep bowing and taking off of hats began already to congratulate His Majesty and wish for further progress. While the lackey Hultman was filtering water and catching it in a silver goblet, the king said: "Major-General Roos has
POLTAVA
fore
207
been surrounded, and the field marshal has therechecked the other troops, but Lagercrona and Sparre have been sent back to help Roos on, and he is likely to come here soon." Thus the army remained standing there awhile, but soon Sparre came up, sprinkled with drops of blood, and related that he could not get through on account of the enemy's superior numbers. The troops now marched back and forth for a long time without theofficers' knowing where theyshouldlead them, and during the wasted time the Russians got fresh courage. Then Lewenhaupt suddenly put himself in motion, marched to the stretch of woods where Creutz' squadrons had taken position, and there drew up the infantry in line against the enemy. No one knew from where the command for this had been given out, and, beside himself with wrath, the field marshal galloped forward to the king's litter, which went beside the Guards. "Is it Your Majestv who commanded Lewenhaupt with the infantry to draw himself up against the enemy,?" The disrespectful tones took the king aback, and as if by the light of a dark lantern that has been suddenly opened, he saw how wearily and coldly even his closest favorites in the circle were staring
at
him.
"No,"heanswereJ reluctantly, but became blushing red, and all understood that he lied.
2o8
THE CHARLES MEN

in the furiously raging field
Then
last
marshal every
glimmer of respect and trust was quenched. He gave voice to the spite and despair which all had nourished fordaysandmonths. The king,acclaimed for his love of veracity, had all at once been humiliated to the level of a wounded soldier, had behaved himself churlishly, and tried to exculpate himself with rude prevarications. Rehnskiolddid not reflect. The moment of retribution had come. He lost control of himself. Hewanted to take revenge andpunish and humiliate. He could not pretend that he
He could not even use the customary form of address. "Yes, yes," he shouted from his horse, "that's what you always do. Would that you would leave
believed in the lying.
it
to
back on him. The king sat motionless on the litter. He had been shamed before the whole troop, and his diffidence and disinclination for bickering had befooled him into an unpremeditated and pitiful trick. His own men had heard him lie like an interrogated baggage-driver. He could not take back his words without still more exposing his shame. The degradation he had brought upon himself as man was for him harder to endure than if he had lost his crown. He wanted to spring up, throw himself on a horse, and take along with him the deep ranks, his men, who still believed that he was the chosen of God.
his
me!" With that he turned
POLTAVA
But the pain
strained him.
in his foot
209
and
a great lassitude re-
heat of fever,
trembled
in
His cheeks still glowed, but it was the and for the first time the broadsword the hand which he was now barely
he shouted.
able to raise.
"Take the litter before the front!" "Take the litter before the front!"
"The
cavalry have not got forward yet," burst

it
out Gyllenkrook with vehemence. "Is that the battle shall begin so soon.?"
possible
"They
are
with vexation,
marching now," answered the king "and the enemy is coming out of
his lines with the infantry."
Then Gyllenkrook commended the king to God's

protection, and seated himself on his horse beside
the Guards, who straightway advanced and gave the

first
volley.
The
battle-token was a straw fastened on the hat,
and through the noise of shots and trumpets and oboes and drums and cavalry kettledrums sounded
the battle-cry of the troops:
!
"God with us God with

I
us " In the throng and farther out on the
field
old
war-comrades and near

sat merrily
relatives,
who had
aforetime
chris-
together at
home
at
wedding and
tening,
met and shouted to one another a last greeting. Where there was more space, captains and lieutenants and ensigns marched before the battalions,
pale as corpses, in time with the music, as
it they had fileduptoaparadein thccitadel square by theold
210
THE CHARLES MEN
Three Crowns; but the soldiers clenched hands over empty cartridge-boxes. Through the midst of the fire from the redoubts the Life Guards went in a stubborn line with muskets on shoulder, but when they came to close quarters with the enemy, they shook their clicking weapons savagely and grasped their bayonets. Dust and dirt soon begrimed them all, so thatthegreen coats of the enemy could no longer be distinguished from the blue, and Swedes lifted musket butt against Swedes. In front of Kruse's dragoons Cornet Queckfelt tumbled from his horse with a bullet in his body and the banner against his breast. Major Ridderborg, who in the morning had seen his gray-haired father fall among
their
the troopers by the king's
litter,
was dragged un-
conscious from the hand-to-hand struggle. In front
oftheNylandregimentfellCo]onelTorstenson,and Lieutenant Gyllenbogel stood with shot-wounds in both cheeks, so that one could see the daylight through them. In a thicket behind the Scanian
Gentleman-Dragoons
reeled Captain
Horn, badly
wounded in the right leg, and his faithful servant, Daniel Lidbom, held him around the body and dried his forehead. Cavalryman Per Windropp sat dead on his horse, in his hand the tatters of a company flag
and Lieutenant Pauli, him his canteen. In front of the Kalmar regiment dropped Colonel Rank, struck in the heart; Major Lejonthat had been torn to pieces,
who
believed him only wounded, ofiêred
POLTAVA
211
hjelm lay with his leg shot off; and by the corpse of Lieutenant-Colonel Silversparre Ensign Djurklo foughtwith broken sword tosavethebanner,untilhe
sank downdying. Around him lay half the non-commissioned officers and half the men as a hero's watch. The Jonkoping regiment, which was nearest the redoubts, carried along their wounded colonel, and after Lieutenant-Colonel Night-and-Day and Major Oxe had fallen in their blood, Captain Mor-
nertook command. Beside him lay prostrate

hidden in his hands, propped on and bleedingfrom five wounds. Scarcely
face
his
in the
ashes on the ground Ensign Tigerskiold with his
elbows
a fourth of
the regiment could
still
bear arms.
At
and
this
cried
moment the field marshal came riding, out to Morner with untimely warmth:
"Where
off to?"
the deuce have the regiment's officers gone

are lying
"Thev
wounded
or dead."
"Why the thousand devils aren't you lying there

with them?"
"No, my old mother's supplications have called down God's protection over me, and therefore 'm
I
alive
and have the honor of commanding this regiment, which has done and will do its duty as true
warriors.
Stand, boys, stand!"
nizable,
Colonel Wrangel lay already dead and unrecogand his recruits sought in vain to prop him
the arms. Colonel Ulfsparre,
up under
who went
212
before the
THE CHARLES MEN

West Gotlanders,
and
fell
with his hands
pressed to his heart,
his major, the dauntless
Sven Lagerberg, was struck down backwards by a musket-ball. The whole hostile army went over him. He heard the horses and the cannon-carriages. He was trampled and kicked and rolled in ashes and dirt among stiffening corpses and moaning wounded, till a wounded dragoon finally took him on his horse, and mercifully conducted him to the
baggage-train.
strips, were goodly numbers over the human sea, but they wavered and tottered, they were torn and snapped, and atlast they sank and vanished one by one. The Uppland regiment, which drew most of its men from the heart of Sweden, from the ancient home of the Svea at Malardale, was annihilated. Flags with the cross-surmounted apple in the corner were twisted from the clenched hands of the fallen, and amid Cossack pikes and butts and sabres Colonel Stjernhook was stretched on the ground, as he stammered: "Now is the time when we mav cry: Father, itis finished!" Lieutenant-Colonel von Post and Major Anrep fell almost side bv side. Captains Gripenberg and Hjulhammar, and Lieutenant Essen, and the three boyishly slender and beardless Ensigns Flygare, Brinck, and Diiben already lay in the throes of death. "Stand, boys, stand!" shouted officers and soldiers, and fell over one an-
The
beloved old banners, shot into
still
fluttering in
POLTAVA
other, so that of corpses
213
of clothing and sod and sand, was built a mound which served the living for a breastwork. Whistling grapeshot and musket-balls, grenades and exploding canister,
rags,
and
rained over the fighting and the dead, and the air
was so saturated with
dirt
and smoke that men could
see only a horse's length ahead.
Then
drew
the troops began to waver.
Lewenhaupt
from the holster and pointed it at his own men. He threatened and struck. " Stand, boys,
a pistol
in Jesus'
holy
name
see the king's litter." " If the
king is here, we'll stand," answered the soldiers. "Stand, boys! halt, stand! God with us!" thev shouted to themselves, as if to control their limbs, that trembled and dripped with sweat and blood. But step by step they yielded, and the riders reined in their horses, until, with slashed faces and hands, they finally wheeled about in wild flight, man after man, and trampled one another down. Under the rising clouds of smoke they saw the king, who amid fallen troopers, bearers, and attendants lay on the ground without a hat, supported on his elbow, with the injured foot propped on the crushed litter, over which had been spread the clay-spotted cloak of the slain trooper Oxehufvud. The stiffened face was raven-black with grime, but the eyes kindled, and he stammered: "Swedes! Swedes!"
In the vielding ranks
manv stood
it
recognized the voice, because
when they seemed to them that

still
214
THE CHARLES MEN

if
even
they could save themselves now, they must
sometime on their death-bed hear across the pillow that timid and lonely voice. He had not the strength to raise himself, but they lifted him on their crossed pikes like a doomed and helpless invalid. Again and again, though, the bearers were shot down, and yet in that instant, when the bleeding men succumbed, they stretched up their arms to support him so that he should not be hurt in the fall. Then Major Wolffelt lifted him on his horse, and afterwards fell himself under the weapons of the pursuing Cossacks. The foot, which was laid over the horse's neck, bled violently, and the bandage dragged in the dust. A cannon-ball from the entrenchments struck off the horse's leg, but Trooper Gierta lifted the king upon his charger and, himself wounded, mounted on the three-legged and bleeding horse. The cavalrymen who had made a ring about the
king could hardly hold back the pursuers. Meanwhile Gyllenkrook rushed over the
field,
and exhorted the straggling soldiers to rally, but they answered him " We are all wounded and our officers dead." He then met the field marshal, and now upon the day of retribution there was no longer any deference. Gyllenkrook shouted to him offisnsively, " Does
:
Your Excellency hear

sounding on our
left
that the volleys are

a
still
wing! Here are
mass of
POLTAVA
215
squadrons that have sat down. Order them to go somewhere!" " Here everything is mad Here to be sure some obey me with their haunches, but few with their hearts," answered the field marshal, and rode further and further to the left. At the same time Gyl!
lenkrook saw Piper with

ride off to the right.
his
men
of the chancellery
Had
the two Excellencies
spoken together? He shouted after them that they were betaking themselves straight toward the enemy, but they didnotturn about. Then he struck his hand on the pommel of his saddle, and understood that now the wine of patience was drunk, that now there remained only captivity or death. There lay behind him no longer a field. There grew from the earth a boundless wood, but the trunks were men and the boughs weapons. It broadened out. It filled the whole landscape, and constantly, constantly spread forward over the bleeding and dying. It was the czar's army, that marched on to take possession of its land and dedicate its empire to future times. Ever nearer and nearer was heard an uncanny and dull-sounding religious hymn. Slowly, step by step, as in a funeral procession, between swinging thuribles and high over the heads of thousands upon thousands^, was borne the giant standard. On the cloth appeared the czar's ancestral tree, surrounded by saints, and
2i6
THE CHARLES MEN

own
likeness.
above, under the Trinity, was his
around the king bv the baggage, where the Swedish NoblemanGuards and some other regiments kept watch. Having bound up his foot and tolerably wiped off
fugitives gathered
The Swedish
now sat in wounded Colonel Hard.

the grime, he
a blue
wagon beside
the
"Where
asked.
is
Adlerfeldt, the chamberlain?" he
fell
Those who stood around him answered, "He by a cannon-shot close to Your Majesty's lit-
ter.
At
that
moment
the Dalecarlian regiment
came
is
past, shattered and in great disorder.
" Dalecarlians," inquired the king, "where

Siegeroth, vour Colonel, and
Major Svinhufvud,
and where
a
is
the merry Drake,
who
is
said to
have
fought so valiantly at the redoubt that he shall get
regiment?"
"They
and the
are shot,
all
of them."
"Where,
then, are the Little Prince, and Piper,
marshal?" Those around him shook their heads and looked at one another. Should they once for all tell him the whole truth ? Should they on that day of judgment expose all his loneliness? Should they tell him, too, that Hedwig Sofia, his favorite sister, had unburied? There lain for halfayearin her coffin was none who dared to do that.
field
POLTAVA
217
"Captured," they answered reluctantly. "Captured? Captured among the Muscovites? Better go among the Turks, then. Forward!" He paled, but he spoke calmly and almost triumphantly with the unalterable smile on his lips.
grizzled soldier
among
the Dalecarlians whis-
pered to the comrades, "Truly I have never seen him so youthful and happy since the day at Narva,
when he went with Stenbock. This

tory to him."
is
day of vic-
The wagon
rolled away,
and the king of the
Charles men, in front of his disordered, fleeing army of haughty ragamuffins, swearing baggage crones, cripples moaning loudly, and limping horses, marched with flying banners and resounding music as from his greatest victory.
By two
o'clock the last volleys were fired, and

itself
then stillness had spread
over the
battle-field,
where Mazeppa's lastCossacks and countless Zaporogeans were impaled alive on stakes. Homesteads and mills stood burned, trees shot asunder, and the fallen heroes lay with dust and ashes blown over them, all with eyes wide open, as if they had stared back from another world on the past years and on the living. A few captured priests and soldiers roamed about, seeking for their countrymen and sometimes opening a shallow grave, over which the
2i8
THE CHARLES MEN

in the
words of burial
speech of their far-off homeland were softly whispered out into the dusk of the
June evening. After that the grave was again shut, to be overgrown with sedge grass and rough thistles. For centuries after, they have rustled to the winds of the steppes on the gloomy bogland to which the
Russians gave the name of the Swedes' Cemetery.
one of the priests foundLieutenant-ColoWetzel, who had fallen, together with his two sons, he picked up the empty covers of the prayerbook which lay beside him, adorned with the famnel
ily crest.
When
"You
field!
are the last of your family," he said;

a stock has
"and
how many
been extinguished on this Galle, Siegeroth, Mannersvard, Rosenskiold,
von Borgen. As I now tear apart the crest on this cover and strew it to the winds, I also in the name
of
my
afflicted,
my
annihilated father-folk, shatter
the coats-of-arms above you all."
multitude of bodies were thrown together in heap outside of the field entrenchment where the a day's conflict had been hottest, but the others remained strewn about. The air was filled almost at once with a stale vapor and with countless flapping crows. But darkness descended silently with all the more solemnity over the wide city of graves, though
still cried for water. Those most mangled prayed that some one in mercy would finish them with a sword-thrust, or they
the
wounded
pitiably
POLTAVA
219
dragged themselves to a horse that had been shot, pulled the pistols from the holsters, and took themselves from the light of day, after they had on tremulous knees called down a blessing over all at home and recited the Lord's Prayer. Then a mortally wounded dragoon began to speak words of power and to thank God for his glorious deathwounds. Over himself and his comrades he uttered the burial words and thrice took earth with his hands and cast it upon his breast. "Out of earth are we come, to earth we shall return." After that he preached with ecstasy of the Resurrection, and finally with a loud voice took up a funeral hymn, and twenty or thirty voices answered far off in the dark under the star-bright heavens. Morten Preacher, who stole around on the plain without feeling any terror of the fallen, continued the psalm when the dragoon was silent. Then he caught sight of an old woman, who came with a torch. After her followed a line of peasants with long, rude carts, on which they loaded clothing and all manner of plunder. A fallen cornet, who was not yet dead, defended himself with his hand and would not let go from him a necklace with a little silver cross, but they thrust him down with a
hay-fork.
shalt not kill
Then Morten Preacher sprang forward. "Thou Thou shalt not kill " he whispered. Among the plundering women he recognized his
!
220
nine-year-old
THE CHARLES MEN

Dunya,
his little princess.
His whole
countenance changed, and he stretched out both

lover.
hands to her, half like a father, half like a bashful She stared at him, and burst into a silly
laugh.
"That's the wicked Swede," she cried, "who bribed me so as to get cherries and kiss me on the
cheeks."
She sprang upon him

of
his
like a cat
and tore the
ear-
rings from him, so that the blood ran
down
the sides
seized
neck. He fell backwards, and the women him and struck him and tore his clothes from him. They came upon his transcript of St. John's Gospel, and strewed the leaves around like feathers
from a plucked fowl. They pulled off his flap-boots and ragged stockings, but when he saw his little Dunya clutch at a hay-fork, he wrenched himself loose with the strength of upflaming hate and fled in his shirt over wounded and dead. "Not even trust in a guileless heart is left us more," he muttered, and clambered up on a lame horse which had attached itself to him in the darkness. "God has abandoned us. This is the judgment. All is over, and the whole world is dark." He rode for two nights and two days, and wounded stragglers pointed out the road. He found the fleeing Swedes on a peninsula between the Vorskla and the bright Dnieper, which spread itself out like a lake between banks overgrown with
POLTAVA
reeds, underbrush,
close behind
221
and bushes. The Russians were them on the landward side, but when the outposts saw Morten Preacher in his bloody shirt, riding bare-back on the lame horse, they sprang to one side in terror and only shot after him when he was already past. The sun burned hot as fire. The wounded and those with camp-fever were bedded under bushes
by the water. The generals stood in conversation, and Lewenhaupt turned mournfully to Creutz. "If the king is taken, the men of Sweden will abandon their houses and leave their last wisp of hay for his ransom. The responsibility is ours. This war is a game of chess, where everything is
decided by taking the kings.
On my knees I have prayed him to have himself rowed across the river, but he pushed me away, and said he had serious
matters to consider." " dear brother, you talk to him as to a gouty
My
statesman.
You
man, but
as
should never talk to him as to a to a youth who is proud of being chal-
lenged to show his manhood."
Creutz went forward to the king's wagon and swung thegloves in his hand with such violence that it seemed as if he meant to strike Charles on the
forehead, but he was at once confounded by his
radiant glance.
"Your Majesty
"
I
is
in
perplexity?"
fight
ill
with the pen
that's
what
'm think-
222
ing
of. I
THE CHARLES MEN

wish to draw up
my will and
arrange for the

in
succession.
left
Then we'll
field, I
set the
guns cracking! If I 'm
on the
wish to be buried
my shirt
like
on the place where I fall." Creutz twisted and squeezed the gloves; he was cowed and lowered his head, like the others.
a
common
soldier
"
Most gracious
to spare their
lord,
life,
am
not of those
full
who
I
pray
God
esty
because
well
do
under-
Your Majshouldgetyour bullet well, so beit,in Jesus' name But to-day Your Majesty can no longer stay in the saddle. God forgivemy words, but Your Majesty has got to the point of being carried around helpless, and when the last of us has lost his life, there will be left only Your Majesty a prisoner!" "A man should not only stand one against five, he should also be able to stand one against all." devil take me! we com"True, true. But mon fellows in uniform are not fit for that. One against all? That means one against the whole world. For that are needed men of quite a different sort, for we are such pitiful wretches that we have nothing to defend ourselves with but our blades. Now that I have described the situation plainly, I therefore beseech Your Majesty to stay with us and not cross the river, because then Your Majesty would set yourself one against all. Then it would be: What an Alexander to run away and
stand the highest longing of a hero. If
.
.
leave. his troops to the Russians
What
a heartless.
POLTAVA
disgraceful dolt
!
!
223
We poor honest
whole world
Look, look And he took the plate and money-barrels from Saxony along instead of leavinge very thing to theRussians. Oho, yes, hahaha!
subjects can never allow that
set yourself as one against the way, to expose your high person to the mud-flinging that ignorance and stuin that
Your Majesty should
pidity will not spare either to the field marshal or
Piper or Lewenhaupt or the rest of us.
When
did
stupidity ever learn tounderstand misfortune?
Your
Majesty wants to die, and therefore it is no sacriand no achievement to die that we old wardogs know; but pride, pride, Your Majesty, to offer up that for your subjects is a sacrifice that the subjects cannot consent to. That the men cannot be taken over is clear. We have no barges, no anchors, no spikes, not enough logs, no carpenters. Therefore I require that Your Majesty remain and do not
fice
defy the world."
"Get
the boats ready!" ordered the king.

gallant landed
Mazeppa, the
proprietor, had
collected his trunks and his two barrels of ducats,
and was already sitting on his wagon far out in the water. Zaporogeans and swarms of soldiers tied their clothes on their backs, took wagon-lids and branches of trees under their arms, and sprang into the waves. At midnight the king's wagon also was lifted on two boats tied together, and Gyllenkrook,
who
stood
at his feet,
dumbly surrendered
to
Lew-
224
THE CHARLES MEN
enhaupt the battle-plan, pasted on a board. No one spoke. The night was starry and quiet, and the oar-strokes of the troopers died away on the shining river.
two shall never see him again," muttered Creutz to Lewenhaupt. "His eyes were so wonderful just now! There is still oil in the lamp, but
gazing curiously at his future. How will he be when he is conquered, ridiculed, old?" Lewenhaupt answered, "The wreath he twined
I
"We
am
for himself slid off

will lie forever
upon
his subjects instead. It
the marshes. has
on the forgotten graves up there in So we must thank him for all he
made of us."
Far off through the darkness of the night was heard the lamenting voice of Morten Preacher: "'And men have made of me a by-word before the world,' saith Job. 'And I am become a mockery, and mine eyes are wasted with grief, and my limbs are all a shadow. Unto corruption I say thou art my father, and unto worms: ye are my mother and sister. And where then is my hope? It goeth down to the gate of death, when I and it shall rest in the
:
earth.'"
Day came on, and Morten Preacher in

shirt in the
his
bloody
rode from group to group, examining the
men
diers stood in silence
Catechism and Biblical knowledge. The solby the empty tent of the king,
but when the shout was raised that they must sur-
POLTAVA
render, and
225
when
the Russian general Bauer, tanned

hill
by the sun, ascended the

hands.
to receive the trophies,

his
Morten Preacher stepped down and wrung
Round
horses,
about, with their brazen
helmets and
on their tired and panting and before them on the ground were laid kettledrums and bass-drums and horns and muskets whose thunder had rolled over battalions, and the well-known flags to which once mothers and wives had waved farewell from door and stairway and window. There was gleaming and sparkling on the heather. Sullen old under-officers embraced each other sobbing. Some cut off their bandages and let the blood run, and two battle-brothers quenched each other's lives with their swords at the same
pikes, sat the Cossacks
time that they threw them

querors.
down
before the con-
and threatening, the cripples advanced. There came youths with frost-bitten cheeks, and without nose and ears, so that thev were like dead men. Ensign Piper, not vet full-grown, who had lost his heels, stumbled up on crutches. There
camethecourtierGunterfelt, who lacked both hands,
Dumb
and had got in France two others of wood, black and shining, which fingered up and down on his coat. There rattled wooden legs and canes and litters and ambulance-wagons. Morten Preacher stood with hands clasped. Sparks leaped before his eves. I' here was a roaring
226
THE CHARLES MEN
and moaning within, and the old preaching-spirit came so violently over him that he himself heard how his voice at one time was choked and hoarse, but the next grew so strong that it seemed to him as if he were borne away on the wings of it and
were changed to a flame of
fire.
He
laid
"i-f(?
reeled forward to the arms that had been

to the
down and pointed

alone
in
is
the offênder.
empty tent ofthe king. You, mother or

his picture to the
widow, clad
mourning, turn
little
wall! Forbid the
ones to mention his name!
little Dunya, who with your playmates will soon be picking flowers on the graves, build his monument with skulls and horses' heads You, cripple,knock with your crutch on the hollow earth and summon him to a meeting there below, where thousands whom he sacrificed await him! And yet I knowthat one day before the judgmentseatofrighteousness we shall all limp forward on our wooden legs and crutches, and say: 'Forgive him, Father, as we have forgiven him, because our love was both his victory and his destruction.'" When no one replied, but all stood bent forward and dumb as if they had answered the same, his despair was yet more vehement. e covered his angu-
You,
lar face
with his hands.
"Tell
cried he.
me by
"Say
the grace of
God
that he lives!"
that he lives!"
With
his black
wooden
fingers Gunterfelt raised
POLTAVA
his hat
is
227
from
his
head and answered, " His Majesty

his
saved."
Then Morten Preacher bowed

!
knee, and
trembled, and recovered himself. " Praised be the Lord of Hosts " he stammered. "If the king is saved, then I will bear whatever
burden fate shall lay upon me." "Yes, yes, praised be the Lord of Hosts!" repeated the Swedes mumbling, and all slowly lifted their hats from their heads.
Behold
My
Children!
with
CORPORAL
his
Anders Groberg stood
canteen on Saracen's Heath. Around him
and marched the last band of fleeing Swedes and Zaporogeans, and on wagons lay those who had been wounded at Poltava, The whole night and morning Anders Groberg had endured thirst so as to spare the last drops of water to the utmost, and the torture had now become overpowering. But in
reeled
the very
moment
it
he
lifted
the canteen to his
lips,
he lowered
again.
"My
should
ing? If
I
God,
my God!"
when
he stammered,
all
"why
alone drink,
the others are thirst-
Thou
hast led us forth into the wilderness

it is
and the steppes,

be able to say:
try
that
Thou
shouldst sometime
'From your poverty-stricken counlet
you go forth into the world with musket on shoulder to be hailed as heroes and conquerors, but when I read your hearts and saw that
of snow
I
they remained pure, that ye were

I
my
children, then
your clothes in pieces and set crutches in your hands and wooden legs under your bodies, so that ye should no more hanker after domination over men, but should be gathered among my saints. Such greatness did I grant unto you.'" Anders Groberg stood awhile longer with the canteen before him. Then he went on, and handed it to the king, who lay in burning fever among the
tore
BEHOLD MY CHILDREN
229
sacksof hay on his wagon. Theking'slips adhered to his teeth; they split and bled when he opened them. " No, no," he whispered, "give the water to the wounded I have just had a glass."
!
Anders Groberg knew well
that the king had had
man who had no water. He taken thought for the morrow and saved it up, and neither spring nor bog had they found for many a
himself was the only
mile. But now, as he turned away from the wagon, weakness and temptation once more came over him. He hung the canteen back at his side and continued to march and march without handing it to the wounded. He squeezed the stopper and strove in his soul, but every time he raised the canteen to his mouth, he let it fall again and had not the heart
to drink of the water.
" Perhaps," he thought, "

with a clearer conscience,
might refresh myself

an offset
I
if as
should
humiliate myself in something else."
At noon, when the sun burned most

saw
a grav-haired subaltern
hotlv, he
who went almost naked
with unbandaged
wounds on his shoulder. Thereupon he tore up his shirt, bound the other's wounds,
and gave him his coat; but as soon as he shut his hand on his canteen again, his unrest of conscience woke anew. Then he gave his boots to a sick driver lad, who limped along with bare and bleeding feet,
but when he
an easy
still
could not swallow the water with
mind
in the
midst of
all
the other thirsty
230
THE CHARLES MEN

He
pointed
full
men, he became embittered and hard.
with derisive curses at the money-barrels which,
of gold and silver, clattered as thev were taken along on two of the wagons, but which could not provide
the unfortunate soldiers with a spoonful of brackish
bog-water.
"Whip
behind!
the horses!"
he shouted, "whip the

left
horses, so that the money-barrels shall not be
Whip
the
men, too!"
nothing, because
The soldiers answered

when
of the
in the years
line, bitter
now they
recognized him again as he used to be formerly,
of success he had gone in front and abusive. They did not notice
that he had hardly heard his
own
voice before he
bent his head and began again and whisper to himself.
to cudgel his brains
"Must
then of necessitv offer up just the one
thing that has now any worth for me.? " he thought. " Haha! May we also some day roll the money-
on the grass and nevermore touch them My God, my God! Once at Veperik I heard the dying soldier Bengt Geting speak with envv of the fallen who had received a clean
barrels
with our fingers!
white
shirt.
My longing dares not rise so high.

.
de-
sire so little
ah, only this, not to be lett lying
behind the others on the heath, only to be laid in the ground, to have earth and grass over me and a couple of words on the muster-roll. Now it will stand: Anders Groberg, his fate unknown."
BEHOLD MY CHILDREN
231
Towards dusk a halt was made to bury those who had died during the day, and a couple of Zaporogeans had already stuck their spades in the ground. In the reedy grass grew a few low bushes with cherries which, meanwhile, officers and soldiers picked and divided among them as a bounty bestowed from God's own hands. Anders Groberg slunk behind the bushes to drink the water unseen by the others. But just then the trumpets began to blow as a sign that the pursuing Russians had againbeconievisible against the heaven on the farthest waves of the parched desert of grass. Anders Groberg opened the tin stopper, but the longer he inhaled the moist smell, the harder beat his heart, and in the nearest wagon the dying Borje Kove, a soldier in charge of the silver, raised himself and stared at him. Anders Groberg tried to meet his look, but could not, and yet again he pushed the draught of refreshment from him. "Blessed are those that hunger and thirst after
righteousness," he said.
Like an acolyte who gives the sacrament, he bore him and held it to the mouth of the soldier, and the dying man drank the water
the canteen in front of
to the last drop.
but
off,
Anders Groberg held on tight to the tail-board, when the wheel rolled on again, his hand slipped
and he tottered to
his
knees on the grass.
232
THE CHARLES MEN

is
no placeformeonthewagons/'hesaid, and pulled a spade to him. "Though I'm hardly thirty years old, I am as weary and infirm as a man of ninety. But leave me one of the spades, so that, if my strength stays by me, I may at least be able to open the earth and lay me down in my last abode. All my unrest has now fallen sweetly to sleep, and a voice calls at my ear: 'Behold my children!'" Once more the soldiers around the shaking wagons began their wandering, and the trumpeters turned in the saddle. Flocks of storks with outspread wings hovered in the dusk over the darkening tracts, and out on the steppe Anders Groberg still knelt with the spade in his hands. Since then no one has learned anything of his
fate.
"There
At
the Council
Table
al-
the ante-room of the Council Chamber IN ready stood the secretary, Schmedeman, with the
address to the chiefs of the provinces, which was
now
to be signed,
and
in
which new
levies
were
required from impoverished Sweden.
The lords began to assemble, and old Frolich, who with crossed hands was groaning and snoring
in a
corner beside the sick Falkenberg, suddenly
awoke.
must hand over to the king the whole bank with the money and the patents," he said
without
lifting his
"We
reddened eyelids.
started forward with such
Then Arvid Horn
vehemence that his chair fell back on the floor, and shouted with his arms lifted toward the ceiling: "Keep yourself to your heavenly revelations and seasons of prayer with sisterEva-Greta and do not make thieves of us out of mere good intentions toward His Royal Majesty!"
" Satan, Satan " retorted Falkenberg, and rapped
!
with his colorless fingers on the arm of the chair. "Here is blackguarding and maligning from day
to day.
No
Swede any longer
respects the
of another, but no one has the courage for

est
it
honor an hon-
all.
for
word against him who alone is responsible for Yes, don't vou sit down again, you Horn, people are most of all incensed about your yacht
234
in
THE CHARLES MEN

the
Malar, and assert that with the powder salutes you want to win the same gallant favor with Princess Ulrika Eleonora which Creutz had with Princess Hedwig Sofia of most blessed memory. Yes, yes, yes, don't talk any
smoke from your
more about the person of the king. Read

instead!
is
his letter
it
Do
that! Is there a single line of
that
worthy of the leader of an unfortunate people?" "Bah! Don't talk about the letter either!" answered Horn, picking up his chair and sitting down. 'A little prattle for women, evasions, and indifferent matters Don't ask that a person who never
!
exposes himself
in a
conversation shall set himself
down
in a tent
I
of paper! But
and pour out his soul on a sheet may well admit that sometime an
all
after-reckoning will follow on
this misery."
"Sometime, say you
!" continued
the invalid
Falkenberg, and raised himself on his trembling arms. "Sometime! Have the Swedes then become
and hypocrites? Neither Christian the Tvrant nor Erik XIV has done us so much harm as this man, and therefore he belongs to the devil. Since our men have fallen in the field, only oldwoman souls are left alive, and those are thev that now begin to propagate the Swedish people." The venerable Fabian Wrede stood up among the speakers, and his voice was wondrously faint and quiet. " The session is beginning," he said, and pointed
cringers
AT THE COUNCIL TABLE

to the
235
open doors. "I'm no cringer. I was never of those who jostled around the young master to make him of age, and I am in disfavor. My native land, that is everything to me father and mother, home, memory, all, all I know that now mv native land is bleeding to death. I know, too, that sometime retribution will follow. But the present is not the time to waste thought upon that. When God sets on us the crown of thorns, that man is not greatest who most conveniently puts it off, but he who himself presses it on all the tighter and says:
'Father, here stand

to
in
to serve Thee.'
And
sav
you that never, never amid the victory-banners
former years has our little people come nearer to imperishable greatness than to-dav." Horn went into the assembly hall, but on the wav he turned to Falkenberg with lowered voice:
"My
mother had many sons besides me. Thev have got their bullets. Shall I be worse than thev r You talk about the king. If a single man can lure a whole people to so many sacrifices, must not that
man be superior to other men?" Wrede took Falkenberg gently by
the shoulders,
and added in an undertone: "And the people who would you to-day forbid have borne so much " that people to press fast the crown of martyrdom? The lords entered the hall, but, propped on his stick, I^'alkenberg continued to wander back and
forth in the ante-room.
When
he at length sat
down
236
at the
THE CHARLES MEN

Council table, the secretary had already read
the^
out
long address, and the signatures were de-
sired.
No one asked leave to speak. Falkenberg sat huddled together in his armchair. His eyes were moist and dim. Forgetful of precedent, he fumbled with his hands on all sides and whispered, "A pen, a pen!
In the Church Square
BROAD-SHOULDERED
that he lay
Jons Snare of
Mora was eating porridge with his peasant neighbors, Mons and Mathias. He was so stingy
and slept all winter in a shutter-bed to save lighting. His large, flat, beardless face, which glowed in the light from the round window, was uglier and more wrinkled than a troll's, and he talked slowly with a hollow and rumbling voice. "I predict," said he, striking his hand on the
table,
morrow
levies
"that days of bark-bread are coming. ToI kill my last cow. Every year brings new
and conscriptions, and now they want to take from us the church bell, the money for the Communion wine, and the grain in the church storehouse."
"It's truly spoken, that," said Mons, He scratched his gray cheeks and took another
pinch of
that
the Sabbath.
on his porridge-spoon, because it was At other times Mons was so stingy he went around among the neighbors and
salt
counted the pinches of salt on the porridge and the sticks of wood under the pot. Mathias, on the contrary, leaned forward over the table, shrivelled and ugly, with black teeth and two small shining gray vipers for eyes. He was,
however, the stingiest of the three. A more covetous peasant never lived in the parish. He was
238
THE CHARLES MEN
so stingy that he went into the sacristy to the priest and ordered him on week days to wear wooden
shoes like the

"
common
to
folk.
My
set us peasants
tion's
fist."
*'
is," he droned, "that God keep our thumbs on the napurse. Not a copper will I lay in the bailiff's
opinion simply
But
steal
my
fish-net,"
answered Jons Snare,
"that you could."
"It's truly spoken, that," said Mons, Mathias sneered, and broke a loaf with the back of an axe: " What 's a man to do when he 's starv-
hair
Jons Snare shook his long and straggling yellow and got up, and his speech could be heard far
outside the cabin.
"Ay,
sluggard, then do you take your father's
old blunderbuss from the wall, pick off the bailiff
and hide them in the hayloft. And before you are done for or come to the gallows, you shall go with me to Stockholm to teach the great gentlemen peasant wit. Peace w-e demand, and peace it shall be!" "It's truly spoken, that. We'll go with you," said Mons and got up, swaying in the knees. Even Mathias got up and gave Jons Snare a
and the tax
assessor,
hand-shake. "To begin with, let's go on to the church and talk to the common folk," he said, with his whin-
THE CHURCH SQUARE 239 ing voice. " We must hold by our ancient rights and
IN
Hberties!"
"I
'11
talk, sure
enough
it
will,"
answered Jons
Snare; "and peace
shall be.
We
demand
it."
They went out of
the cabin, and on the
way
talked with wives and servant-maids and old
men
and boys. When they came they had a good twenty or

them.
to the church square, thirty following with
The autumn sun shone

woody
church.
ridges
cold and clear over and lakes and on the long white
On
the square in front of the stable-build-
ing the people

carts,
but thechildren of the confirmation
murmured between wagons and class, who
had as yet got no further than the threshold of the church porch. The shaggiest old men, who came down from the woods and who had already put on their fur coats, began to cry out and make a racket when they recognized Jons Snare, because they all regarded him as the most stiff-necked and powerful peasant in the parish. The other Dalecarlians, as well, with bright, open features and white shirts that gleamed out between leather breeches and vests, turned toward him, for it seemed to them that nothing in the world had more weight than his slow and obstinate words. "You are great church-goers, you," he shouted suppose it's to learn the new church to them. " prayer about the subject's duty of patience." had
sat
by the
altar,
240
THE CHARLES MEN
No one gave himself leisure to answer. All thronged about him. "The king is taken!" they shouted. "The king is taken! The king is taken!" "Is the king taken?" Jons Snare stood with his hands clenched and looked inquiringly from one
to another.
"It's truly spoken, that," said Mons. " Be still, you fellow! What do you know about ? it " roared Jons Snare, and lifted his clenched hands
edged away and left him space. a bench before the stables, but the Dalecarlians would not leave him, and the circle around him became closer. No one wanted to lose a single word. "Is the king taken?" he asked afresh. " So it 's being told from one to another. A smith from Falun has said that the king is taken among
half
up so
sat
that
all
He
down on
the heathens."
Mathias moved up nearer and bent himself and

stretched out his long fingers.
"What do you
Snare,
I
think about these tidings, Jons
simply ask?" Snare sat with hands on knees, and the sun Jons shone upon his wooden, motionless forehead and
hard lips. He looked down at the ground. " What do you say ? " murmured the Dalecarlians.
" In Stockholm one of the councillors
is
giving his
own money
to
the Crown, another
his plate,
and
IN
THE CHURCH SQUARE
241
the third proposes that every well-to-do subject shall
give
all
the poor man.
he has and hereafter possess no more than There is only the Queen Dowager
her allowance undiminished, the stingy
who wants
trollop, and people on the street are breaking the windows of Piper's countess." "And we," said Mathias, "we ought to take the blunderbuss from the wall, Jons Snare says." "It's truly spoken, that," confirmed Mons. Jons Snare was still silent, and it now became so still around him that nothing else was heard than
the ringing of the
bell.
"Yes," he answered after a time, and his voice rumbled more deeply and bitterly than ever before, "we ought to take the blunderbuss from the wall and leave the house. By God vou good men of the
!
Dale, if the king
is
taken, then
wedemand
that thev
should lead us against the foe, so that
we may
get
him home."
came
Mathias remained in thought, but his brow bebright, and his gray eyes twinkled slyly. " Look you, that is a demand that belongs to our
ancient rights and liberties."
"It 's truly spoken, that," said Mons. "Yes, ves, that's a demand that belongs to our ancient rights and liberties," murmured the Dalecarlians, and lifted their hands in affirmation. Then there was such a clamtjr and uproar that the bells
could no more be heard.
Captured
the wastes of Smaland and Finnved out FAR and wondrous portents appeared
in
in
the
air,
worth and the morrow all hope, people either went hungry or ate and drank with riot and revel amid half-stifled curses. At every farm sat a mother or a widow in mourning. During the day's occupation she talked of the fallen or the captives, and at night she started from her sleep, and thought she was still hearing the thunder of the hideous wagons on which teamsters in black oilcloth cloaks carried away those who had died of the
since
work
lost all
plague.
In the church of Riddarholm the body of the

Princess
Hedwig
Sofia
had
lain
unburied for seven
years from lack of money, and
been laid out for the old Eleonora, the mother of the Charleses. Several sleepy ladies-in-waiting were keeping the deathwatch, and wax-lights burned mistily around the dead, who lay wrapped in a simple covering of linen. The youngest lady-in-waiting arose, yawning, went to the window, and drew back the black broadcloth to see if
now a new coffin had Queen Dowager Hedwig
dawn had not appeared.

of a gnarled and rugged figure, who thump of his wooden
Limping
and
leg,
steps were heard from the ante-room,
a little
man
inevery way tried to subdue the
advanced
to the coffin
and with signs of deep
CAPTURED
reverence
lifted aside
243
the drapery.
His
fair,
almost
white hair lay close along his head and extended
down his neck as far as his collar. From a flask he poured embalming liquid into a funnel, which was set in the royal corpse between the kirtle and the bodice. But the liquid was absorbed very slowly, and, waiting, he set down the flask on the funeral carpet and went to the lady at the window.
"Is
it
not seven o'clock yet, Blomberg!" she
whispered.
"It has just struck six. It's an awful weather outand I feel in the stump of mv leg that we 're going to have a snowstorm. But then it's a long while since one could foretell anything good in Sweden. Trust me, not this time either vvill there be enough money for a decent funeral. It was only the beginning when the sainted Ekerot prophesied misery and conflagration. And perhaps the fire did n't go on over the island in front of the castle! Over the plain of Uppsala it threw its light from cathedral and citadel. In Vasteras and Linkoping the tempest sweeps the ashes around the blackened and now there's burnspaces devastated by fire ing in all quarters of the kingdom. Korgive my freeside,
dom, gracious
old
mistress, but to
tell
the truth
lie.
is
in
the long run less dangerous than to
That's
my
maxim
that saved
my
life
once down there by

then a surgeon
in
the Dnieper River."
"Saved your
life?
You were
244
THE CHARLES MEN

the story.
your regiment.
tell
You must sit down by me The time is so long."

lifting his
here and
Blomberg spoke resignedly and

priest,
a trifle like a
from time to time
dexter and mid-
dle fingers with the other fingers closed.
Both
its
cast a glance at the corpse,
which slept
in
coffin
with gracefully disposed locks, and wax

in the
and rouge
deepest of the wrinkles. There-
upon they sat themselves on a bench in the window-nook outside the hanging broadcloth, and Blomberg began whispering his narrative.
was lying unconscious in the marshy wilderness had stumbled along on my wooden leg and got a blow from a horse's hoof, and when I came to, it was night. I felt a cold, strange hand fumble under my coat and pull at the buttons. An abomination before the Lord are the devices of the wicked, I thought; but gentle words are pure.
I
at Poltava. I
Without becoming
frightened,
seized the corpse-
plunderer very silently by the breast, and by his stammered words of terror I perceived that he was
one of the Zaporogeans who had made an

with the Swedes and followed the army.
alliance
As
sur-
geon
had tended many of these men, as well as captured Poles- and Muscovites, and could make myself tolerably understood in their various lanI
guages. " Many devices are in the heart of man," said
CAPTURED
meekly; "but the counsel of the Lord, that
abide.
245
shall
can befall the righteous, but the ungodly shall be filled with misfortunes."
evil
No
"Forgive me, pious sir," whispered the Zapo"The Swedish czar has left us poor Zaporogeans to our fate, and the Muscovite czar, whom we faithlesslv deserted, is coming to maim and slay us. I only wanted to get me a Swedish coat so that in a moment of need I could give myself out as one
rogean.
of you.
Do
not be angry, godly sir!"
To
and
see if he
had any knife,
searched out
flint
steel
while he was speaking and
made
a fire
feet. I
with dry thistles and twigs which lay at
my
noted then that I had before me a little frightened old man with a sly face and two empty hands. He
vehemently as a hungry animal prey, and bent in the light over a Swedish ensign who lay dead in the grass. Thinking that a dead man might willingly grant a helpless ally his coat, I did nothing to hinder the Zaporogean; but as he drew the coat from the fallen one, a letter slipped from the pecker. I saw by the address that Falkenberg was the name of the bo\ who had bled to death. He lav now as fairlv and peacefully stretched out as if he had slept in the meadow by the house where he was born. The letter was from his sister, and 1 had only time to spell out the words which from that hour became my favorite maxim: "To tell the truth is in the
raised himself as
that has found
its
246
THE CHARLES MEN

less
dangerous than to He." At that moment the Zaporogean put out my light. "With your wise consent, sir," he whispered; "do not draw the corpse-plunderers hither." I paid little attention to his talk, but repeated time after time: "To tell the truth is in the long run less dangerous than to lie. That is a- big saying, my old fellow, and you shall see that I get along further with it than you do with your disguise." "We may try it," answered the Zaporogean, " but we must promise this, that the one of us who
long run
survives the other shall offer a prayer for the
other's soul."
" That
for
in
it
is
agreed,"
said,
and gave him
my
hand,
seemed
this
as if through misfortune I had found shaggy-bearded barbarian a friend and a
brother.
He
helped
me
up, and at daybreak
we
up
fell
into
the long line of stragglers and
wounded
that silently
as pris-
tottered into Poltava to give themselves

oners.
They willingly tried to conceal the Zaporogean among the rest. His big boots with their
flaps
reached up to his hips, and his coat

to his spurs.
tails
hung
down
at
As soon
as a
Cossack looked
him, he turned to one of us and cried with raised
voice the only Swedish words he had learned in the
campaign:"! Shwede. Devil-damn!" My Zaporogean and I, with eight ot mv comrades, were assigned quarters in the upper story of
CAPTURED
a big stone house.
first,
247
As we two had come up there picked we out for ourselves a little separate
cubby-hole with a window on an alley. There was nothing else than a little straw to lie on, but I had in my coat a tin flute, which I had taken from a fallen Kalmuck at Starodub, and on which I had taught myself to play a few pretty hymns. With that I shortened the time,and soon we noticed that, asoftenas I played, a youngwoman cameto thewindow on the other side of the alley. Possibly for that reason I played more than 1 should have otherwise cared to, and I know not rightly whether she was fairer and more seemly than all other women, or whether long sojourn among men had made my eye less accustomed, but I had great joy in beholding her. However,
I
never looked at her when

I
she turned her face toward our window, because
have always been bashful before women-folk, and have never rightly understood how to conduct myself in that which pertains to them. Nor have I ever sought fellowship with men who go with their heads full of wenches and do nothing but hanker after gallant intrigues. " Let everv one keep his vessel in holiness," Paul saith,"and not in the lust of desire as do the heathen, which know not God; also let no one in this matter dishonor and
wrong
I
his brother,
in all
because the Lord
is
a powerful
avenger
such things."
recognized, however, that a
man should
at ail
248
THE CHARLES MEN

my
coat was in tatters,
I
times bear himself courteously and fittingly, and

as
one sleeve of
always
turned that side inward when
played.
She usually
sat with
arms crossed above the
window-sill, and her hands were round and white,
though
large.
with silver
She had a scarlet-colored bodice buttons and many chains. An old witch
often stood beneath her window with a wheelbarrow and sold bread covered with jam called her Feodosova. When it grew dusk, she lighted a lamp, and since neither she nor we had any shutters, we could follow her with our glance when she blewon the fire, but I found it more proper that we should turn away, and I therefore set myself with my Zaporogean on the straw in the corner. Besides the prayer-book, I had a few torn-out leaves of Miiller's Sermons, and I read and translated many passages for my Zaporogean. But when I noticed that he did not listen, I gave it over for more worldly objects, and asked him of our neighbor on the other side of the alley. He said that she was not unmarried, because maidens in that country always wore a long plait tied with ribbons and a little red tuft of silk. More likely she was a widow, because her hair hung loose as a token of sorrow. When it became wholly dark, and we lay down on the straw, I discovered that the Zaporogean had stolen my silver snuff-spoon, but after T had
who
CAPTURED
taken
it
249
his fault,
back and reproached him for
we
slept beside each other as friends.
at feeling
was almostashamed, when it was morningagain, myself happier than for a long time, but as soon as I had held prayers with the Zaporogean and had washed and arranged myself sufficiently, I went to the window and played one of my most
I
hymns. Feodosova was already sitting in the sunlight. To show her how different the Swedes were from her fellow countrymen, I instructed my Zaporogean to clean our room, and after a couple of hours the whitewashed walls were shining white and free from cobwebs. All this helped me to drive away my thoughts, but as soon as I set
beautiful
mvself again to
rest,
my
awakened
that
could be happy
In the hall outside,
my
torments of conscience in such misery. comrades sat on floor and
benches, sighing heavily and whispering about their dear ones at home. In due turn, two of us every
day were allowed to go out into the open air to the ramparts, but when I laid myself on my straw in the evening, I was ashamed to pray God that the lot next morning should fall upc^n me. I knew
longed for an very well within mvself that, only to invent was an errand to it hour's freedom,
it"
the house opposite.

really
still
And
fu)
yet
felt that, if
the lot
fell
upon
nie without
my
prayer,
should
never venture to
up
there.
250
THE CHARLES MEN
When I came to the window in the morning, Feodosova lay sleeping in her clothes on the floor with a cushion under her neck. It was still early and cool, and 1 did not have the heart to set the tin flute to my mouth. But as I stood there and waited, she may have apprehended in her sleep that I was gazing at her, for she looked up and laughed and stretched her arms out, and all that so suddenly that I did not manage to draw back unnoticed. My brow became hot, I laid aside my flute, and behaved myself in every way so clumsily and unskilfully that I never was so displeased with myself I pulled and straightened my belt, took my flute again from the window, inspected it, and
pretended
finally the
I was blowing dust out of it. When Russian subaltern who had charge over
Zaporogean that he was one of the two who were to go out into the city that dav, I drew the Zaporogean aside into a corner and enjoined him with many words to pick a bunch of yellow stellaria such as I had seen around the burned houses by the ramparts. At a
us unfortunates informed
my
we should then give them to Feodosova, I said. She appeared to be a good and worthy woman, who perchance in return might give us poor fellows some fruit or nuts, I said.
suitable opportunity
The
said.
miserable bite of bread that the czar allowed

I
us dailv did not even quiet our worst hunger,
CAPTURED
He
light,
251
was afraid to show himself out in the sunbut neither did he dare to arouse mistrust bv staying in, and therefore he obeyed and went. Scarcely was he out of the door, though, when
had not held him back, embarrassment grew greater. sat down much I on the bed in the corner, where I was invisible, and stayed there obstinately. Still the time was not long, for thoughts were many. After a while I heard the Zaporogean's voice. Without reflecting, I went to the window and saw him standing by Feodosova with a great, splendid bouquet of stellaria, which reminded one of irises. First she did n't want to take them, but answered that they were impure, since they had been given by a heathen. He pretended that he understood nothing and that he knew only a few words of her speech, but with winkings and gestures and nods he made it intelligible that I had sent the flowers, and then at last she took them. Beside myself with bashfulness, I went back into the corner, and when the Zaporogean returned, I seized him behind the shoulders, shook him, and
I
began to regret that
because
now
in solitude
my
stood him against the wall.
But scarcely had

again,
let
go
my
grasp when he
with his thoughtless vivacity stood at the window
made
signs with his hands, and threw kisses
on all five pushed him
of his fingers.
aside,
Then
came forward,
sat pick-
and bowed. i*'eodosova
252
THE CHARLES MEN

to the
ing the flowers apart, pulling oft the leaves and
ground. Vetook courage and began to speak without stopping to consider how
letting
I
it
them fall one by one hemence helped me so that

would be most
polite to begin a conversation.
"The
lady will not take amiss
my
comrade's
pranks and unseemly gestures," I stammered. She plucked still more eagerly at the flowers and answered after a time, "My husband, when he was alive, often used to say that from heel to head such well-made soldiers as the Swedes were not to be found. He had seen Swedish prisoners undressed and whipped by women, and had seen that the women at the last were so moved because of their beauty that they stuck the rods under their arms and sobbed, themselves, instead of those they tormented. Therefore have I become very curious these days. / And the love songs v/hich you play sound so wonderful." Her speech pleased me not altogether, and I found it little seemly to answer in the same spirit by praising her figure and white arms. Instead I took my flute and played my favorite hymn: "E'en from the bottom of my heart I call Thee in
.
.
my
need."
After that we conversed of
many
things,
and
though my store of words was small, we soon understood each other so well that never did anv dav seem
to
me
shorter.
CAPTURED
At mid-day,
253
after she had clattered about with plates and and swung a palm-leaf fan over the jugs embers in the fireplace, she lifted down from the ceiling a landing-net with which formerly her husband had caught small fish in the river. In the net she put a pan with steaming cabbage and a wooden flask with kvass, and the handle was so long that she could hand us the meal across the street. When I drank to her, she nodded and smiled and said that
she did not regard

tured heathens.
it as wrong to feel pity for capToward evening she moved her
spinning-wheel to the window, and we kept on conversing when it was dusk. I no longer felt it as a
sin to
be happy in the midst of the sorrow that surus, because my intent was innocent and pure. Just as I had seen the stellaria shining over
rounded
heaps of ashes among the burned and desolate houses by the ramparts as a song of praise to God's goodness, so seemed to me now the joy of my heart.
with
When it became night, and I had held prayer my Zaporogean and yet once more reproached him that he had stolen my snuff-spoon, the garrulous
say
:
man began
"
I
to talk to
me
in
an undertone and
a
see
clearly, little
in
father, that
is
with Feodosova,and
truth she
to
woman whom you may take
vou are in love good and pure wife. That vou never
sort
would enter upon any love-dealing of another I have understood from the first." "Such stuff!" answered I, "such stuff!"
254
THE CHARLES MEN

the long run less dangerous than
to say."
"Truth is in lying, you used
When
I
he struck
me
with
my own
maxim-stafF,
became confounded, and he proceeded. "The czar has promised good employment and wages to every one of you Swedes who will become his subject and be converted to the true faith." "You are out of your wits. But if I could steal off and take her home with me on horseback, I would do it." Next morning, when I had played my hymn, I learned that to-day it was my turn to go out under the open heavens. I became warm and restless. I combed and fixed myself up even more carefully than at other times, and changed to the Zaporogean's ensign coat, so as not to wear my torn one. Meanwhile I deliberated with myself. Should 1 go up to her? What should I say then? Perhaps, though, that would be the only
time in
my
life
when
I
could get to speak with her,
and how should

gray old age,
at
if
!
not repent thereafter even to

I
my
out of awkwardness
had missed
that one chance
My heart beat more violently than
any affair with the enemy, when I had stood with bandages among the bullets and the fallen. I stuck the flute into my pocket and went out. When I came down on the street, she sat at the window without seeing me. I would not go to her without firstaskingleave,and I did not know rightly
my
CAPTURED
how
I
255
1
should conduct myself. Pondering,

she heard
took, a
couple of steps forward.
Then
I
lifted
my hand
to
me and looked out. my hat, but with a
long, ring-
ing burst of laughter she sprang up and cried,
"Haha! Look,
I
look, he has a
wooden leg!"
and stared and had neither thought nor feeling. It was as if my heart had swelled out and filled all my breast, so that it was near to bursting. I believe I stammered something. I only remember that I did not know whither I shouldturn,that I heard her still laughing, that everything in the world was instood with
raised,
my hand
stared,
and
different to
me, that freedom would have frightened as my captivity and my wretchedness, that of a sudden I had become a broken man. I remember vaguely a long and steep lane without stone pavement, where I was accosted by other Swedish prisoners. Perhaps, even, I answered them, asked after their health, and took some puffs out of the tobacco pipes they lent me. I believe T disturbed mvself over the fact that it was so long till night, so that 1 had to return the same way and pass her window in brightest daylight. Bveverv means T prolonged the time, speaking now to one man, now to another,but shortly the Rus-
me
as
much
sian
dragoons came and ordered nie

place.
I
to turn
about
to
my
As
went up the
lane,
persuaded myself that
256
I
THE CHARLES MEN

a
it
quite friendly
would not betray myself, but would salute in manner before the window. Was
her fault that so

cripples
many
of the Swedish soldiers, of
whom she hadhad suchfinedreams,werenowpitiful

"
I
on wooden legs? Hurry up there!" thundered
the dragoons, and
hastened
my
steps, so that the
thumping of my
of the
wooden
houses.
leg
echoed
between
I
the walls
"Dear Heavenly Father,"

have
I
muttered, "faithfully
served
my
earthly master. Is this the reward
Thou givest me, that Thou makest of me in my youth a defenceless captive, at whom women laugh? Yea, this is Thy recompense, and Thou wilt abase me
at
into yet deeper humiliation, that thereby
may
length
become worthy of the crown of blessed-
ness."
When I came under the window and carried my hand to my hat, I saw that Feodosova was away That gave me no longer any relief I stumbled up to my prison, and at every step heard the thumping of
.
my wooden
leg.
"I have talked with Feodosova," whispered
the
Zaporogean. I gave him no reply. My happiness, my flower, that had grown up over the heaps of ashes, lay consumed; and if it had again shone out, I myself, in alarm, would have trampled it to death with my
CAPTURED
wooden
!
257
the Zaporogean's
leg.
What signified
to
me
whisperings? " Ah " he went on, "
when you were gone, I reproached Feodosova and said to her that you were fonder of her than she realized, and that, if you were not a stranger and a heathen, you would ask her to
be your wife."
together, to lock
hands and bit my lips vexation and embarrassment, and I thanked God that He abased me every moment more deeply in shame and ridicule before men. I opened the door to the outer hall and began
In silence
I
clenched
my
up my
to talk to the other prisoners:
"As
wild asses in the desert
seek our food.
On
a field that
we go painfully to we do not own we
husbandmen, and harvest in the vineyard of the ungodly. We lie naked the whole night from lack of garments, and are without covering
must go
as
against the cold.
We areoverwhelnied by the deluge from the mountains, and from lack of shelter we em'nrace the cliffs. But we beg Thee not for mitigation. Almighty God. We prav only: Lead us, be nigh unto us! Behold, Thou hast turned away Thv countenance from our people and stuck thorns in our shoes, that we mav become Thv servants and Thy children. In the mould of the battle-field our brothers sleep, and a fairer song of victory than that
258
THE CHARLES
iMEN
of the conquerors by the sword Thou dost offer to Thy chosen ones." "Yea, Lord, lead us, be nigh unto us!" echoed
all
the prisoners murmuringly.
Then
in
out of the darkest corner rose a lonely,
"Oh, that I were as former months, as in the days when God protected me, when His lamp shone upon my head, when with His light I went into the darkness! As
trembling voice, which cried:
was in my autumn days, when God's friendship was over my tent, while yet the Almighty was with me, and my children were about me Thus my heart cries out with Job, but I hear it no longer, and I stammer forth no longer: Take away my trials! With the ear I have heard tell of Thee, O God, but now hath mine eye beheld Thee." " Quiet, quiet!" whispered the Zaporogean, taking hold of me, and his hands were cold and trembling. " It can be no one else than the czar who is coming below in the lane." The lane had become filled with people, with beggars and boys and old women and soldiers. In the middle of the throng the czar, tall and lean, walked very calmlv, without a guard. A swarm of hopping and shriekingdwarfs were his only retinue. Now and then, turning, he embraced and kissed the smallest dwarf on the forehead in a fatherly wav. Here and there he stood still before a house, and was offered a glass ofbrandy, which he jestingly emptiedatasingle
I
!
CAPTURED
gulp. It could be
259
nobody but
the czar, because one
saw directly that he alone ruled over both people and city. He came so close under my window that I could have touched his green cloth cap and the halttorn-ofF brass buttons on his brown coat. On the skirt he had a great silver button with an artificial stone and on his legs rough woollen stockings. His brown eyes gleamed and flashed, and the small black moustaches stood straight up from his shining lips. When he caught sight of Feodosova, he seemed as if smitten with madness. When she came down on the street and knelt with a cup, he pinched her ear, then took her under the chin and lifted up her head, so that he could look her in the eyes. "Tell me, child," he inquired, "where is there a comfortable room in which I can eat? May there be one at your house?" The czar had seldom with him on his excursions any master of ceremonies orothercourtier. He took along neither bed norbed-clothes nor cooking utensils; no, not even a cooking or eating vessel; but everything had to be provided in the turn of a hand wherever it occurred to him to take lodging. It was for this reason that there was now running and clattering at all the gates and stairs. From this direction came a man with a pan, from that another with an earthen platter, from yonder a third with a ladle and drinking utensils. Up in Feodosova'sroom thefloor was strewn deeply with straw. The czar helped with
26o
the
THE CHARLES MEN

work
like a
common
on by
servant, and the chief direc-
tion was carried
hunchbacked dwarf, who
was called the Patriarch. The dwarf every once in a while put his thumb to his nose and blew it in the air straight in front of the czar's face, or invented rascal tricks of which I cannot relate before a lady of quality. Once when the czar turned with crossed arms to the window, he noticed me and the Zaporogean,and nodded likea comrade. The Zaporogean threw himself prostrate on the floor and stammered his "I Shwede. Devil-damn!" Butlpushed himasidewith my foot and told him once for all to be silent and get up, because no Swede conducted himself in that fashion. To cover him as much as possible, I stepped in front of him and took my position there. "Dal is nit iibel" said the czar, but at once fell back into his mother speech, and asked who I was. "Blomberg, surgeon with the Uppland regiment," I answered. The czar scanned me with a narrowing gaze, so penetrating that I have never seen a more all-discerning look.
no longer," he said, "and here you see Rehnskiold's sword." He lifted the sword with its scabbard from his belt and threw it on the table, so that the plates hopped, " But for certain you are a rogue, for you wear a captain's or
exists
"Your regiment
ensign's uniform."
CAPTURED
I
261
answered, "'That
is
a hard saying,* saith

I
John
hope
the Evangelist.
fell
The
if
coat
borrowed
ill
after
my own
in rags,
and
that be
is
done,
:
will yet
for grace, because this

is
my maxim To tell the truth
in the
long run less dangerous than to lie." " Good. If that is your motto, you shall takeyour
servant with you and
come over
here, so that
we
may prove
it."
TheZaporogean trembled and tottered, as he followed behind me, but as soon as we entered, the czar
pointed
as if I
me to a chair among the others at

his equal,
the table,
had been
and
said, "Sit,
Woodenleast
Leg!"
He had
Feodosova on
his knee,
without the
it,
consideration of what could be said about
and round them stamped and whistled the dwarts and a crowd of Boyarswho now began to collect. Adwarf who was called Judas, because he carried a likeness of that arch-villain on the chain around his neck, seized a handful of shrimps from the nearest plate and threw them to the ceiling, so that they fell in a rain over dishes and people. When in that way he
at the czar
had made the others turn toward him, he pointed with many grimaces and called quite coolly to him: "You amuse yourself, you Peter Alexievitch. I\ven outside of the city I have heard
tell
of the pretty Feodosova of Poltava, I have; but you always scrape together the best things for your-
self,
you
little
father."
262
THE CHARLES MEN

in the
"That you do," chimed

a ring
other dwarfs in
around the
czar.
"You
are an arch-thief,
you
Peter Alexievitch."
Sometimes the czar laughed or answered, sometimes he did not hear them, but sat seriousand meditative,and his eyes
moved meanwhile like twogreenI
glinting insects in the sunlight.
had once seen the most blessed Charles the Eleventh converse with Rudbeck, and how it then came over me that Rudbeck, for all his bowings, amounted to far more than the king. Here it was the other way about. Although the czar himself went around and did the waiting, and let himself be treated worse than a knave, I saw only him and Feodosova. I read his purpose in
I
called to
mind how
the smallest things.

curtailed caftans
recognized
it
in the forcibly
and shaven chins at the city gate. There was a buzzing in my head, and I knelt humbly on the straw and stammered: "Imperial
Majesty! To tell the truth is in the long run less dangerous than to lie, and the Lord said to Moses: 'Thou shalt not hold with the great ones in that which is evil.' Therefore I beseech that I may forego further drinking. For behold, I am soon done with who is both like the game, and my gracious lord has in thelast and unlike Your Imperial Majesty year turned me to drinking filtered marsh water." A twitching and trembling began in the czar's right cheek near the eye.
CAPTURED
!
263
"Yes, by Saint Andreas " said he. " I am unlike my brother Charles, for he hates women like a
woman and wine
like a
woman, and
offers
up
his
people's riches as a woman herhusband's,and abuses
me
His
woman; but I respect him like a man. Wooden-Leg! Drink, drink!" The czar sprang forward, seized me by the hair,
like a
health,
and held the goblet to my mouth, so that the Asr trakan ale foamed over my chin and collar. As we drank the prescribed health, two soldiers entered in brownish yellow uniforms with blue collars and discharged their pistols, so that the hot room, which was already filled with tobacco clouds and onion smell, was now also enveloped in powder smoke.
The
czar sat
down
again at the table.
Kven
in all
wanted to sit and think, but he never allowed any one else to shirk the duty of drinking and become serious like himself. He drew Feodosova afresh to his knee. Poor, poor Feodosova She sat there, a bit sunk together, witharms hanging and
that noise he
!
mouth impotentlv
half-open, as
if
she waited cuffs
had she not and blows amid the caresses. courage to pull the sword to her from the table, press her wrist against the edge, and save her honor, before it was too late? Over and over she might have laughed at my wooden leg and my disgrace,
if
Why
with
mv
I
life
could have preserved her honor.
Nor had
ever before been so near her and seen
so clear] v to what a
wondrous work she had been
264
THE CHARLES MEN
formed in the Heavenly Creator's hands. Poor, poor Feodosova, if you had but felt in your heart with what a pure intent a friend regarded you in your humiliation, and how he prayed for your well-being! Hour after hour the banquet continued. Those of the Boyars and dwarfs who were most completely overcome already lay relaxed in the straw and vom-
made water, but the czar himself always rose up and leaned out through the window. "Drink, Wooden- Leg, drink " he commanded, and hunted me around the room with the glass, making the
ited or
!
Boyars hold
me
till I
twitching in his face became ever
had emptied every drop. The more uncanny,
and when we were

he
finally together at the table again,
moved
three brimful earthen bowls in front of
me and
said:
"Now, Wooden-Leg, you
shall pro-
pose a health to be drunk all round and teach us to understand its meaning with your maxim." I raised myself again as well as I could. " Your health, czar " I shouted, " for you are as!
suredly born to
command."
he asked, "should the soldiers present arms and salute me if any other was worthier to command! Where is there anything more pitiful
than an incompetent ruler?
"Why,"
The
day
find
my own
son unworthy to inherit

that day shall he die.
my
great, beloved realm,

first
Your
and
truth,
Woodenczar.
Leg, requires no bowl."
The
pistols cracked,
all
drank but the
CAPTURED
Then
I
I
265
gathered the fragments of

I
my
underif
standing as a miser his coins, for
believed that,
could catch the czar in a gracious and mild humor, might perhaps save my Feodosova.
"Well, then. Imperial Majesty," I continued, one of the bowls on high, "this is Astrakan ale, brewed of mead and brandy with pepper and tobacco. It burns much before it delights, and when it delights, it puts one to sleep." With that I threw the bowl to the ground so that
therefore, lifting
it
broke
in a
thousand
pieces.
Then
'
lifted
the next
bowl.
Hungarian wine. Drink no more only water,' writes the Apostle Paul to Timothy,' but use
is
" This
little wine for thy stomach's sake, and because thou art so often sick.' So speaks a holy one to weakly men and stay-at-homes. But go out on the battle-field amid frost and wailing and tell me, to how many of the groaning would this bowl of sweetish wine give relief from pain and a softer
death?" Therewith
so that
it
threw that bowl also to the ground
broke.
is
Then
lifted
the third bowl.
brand V. It is despised by the fortunate because they thirst not after refreshthe rich, and ment as the desert for coolness, but would only
gibe at the pleasure
it
"This
gives.
But brandy assumes
power
like
a
in the
moment it glides over the tongue, despot in the moment he steps across a
very
266
THE CHARLES MEN

comfrom
a
threshold, and the bleeding and dying draw

fort
best, for I
is
few drops. Therefore I call brandy the speak as a warrior, and to tell the truth
!
long run less dangerous than to lie." "Right, right " acclaimed the czar, and took the bowl and drank, at the same time that he handed
in the
pistols cracked. " You have a pass and a horse to go your way, and wherever you come, you shall tell about Poltava." Then I knelt yet again in the straw and stamin my pettiness and mered: "Imperial Majesty beside you sits a a pure and good weakness
me two gold-pieces, while the
shall
woman."
"Haha!" screamed
tottered to their feet.
the dwarfs and Boyars,
who
"Haha! haha!"
The czar got up and led Feodosova toward me. "I understand. He who limps on a wooden leg may fall in love, too. Good. I present her to you just as she is, and you shall have a good situation with me. I have promised every Swede who enters into my service and is baptized in our faith that he shall become one of our people." Feodosova stood like a sleep-walker and stretched
her hands towards me.
What
did
it
matter that she
had laughed at me? I should soon have forgotten that, and she would soon not have seen my wooden leg, for I should have cared for her and worked for her and prayed with her and made her home bright and tranquil. I should have lifted her up to my bosom
CAPTURED
as a child
267
faithful
and asked her
if
an honest and
heart could not
make another
heart throb.
May-
hap she already bore the answer on her tongue, for slowly she beamed up and became flushed, and her whole face became transfigured. Far away in a corner house on Prastgatan in Stockholm a lonely old woman sat with her sermon-book and listened and wondered whether a letter would not be left for her through the door, whether no disabled man would step in with a greeting from the remote wilderness, whether I never should come or whether I lay already dead and buried. I had prayed for her every night. I had thought of her in the tumult in the midst of stretchers and wailing wounded. Butatthat moment I thought of her no longer;! sawand heard nothing else but Feodosova. And yet I was angry and strove against something heavy which weighed upon my heart and which I did not understand, but was only slowly and gradually able to make out. I bent to Feodosova to kiss her hand, but she
whispered,
"The
czar's hand, the czar's hand."
Then
"
stretched myself toward the czar and
kissed his hand.
My faith,"
T
whispered equally softly, "and

not desert."
still
my
royal lord
may
The
nook
to
czar's
cheek
twitched, and the dwarfs
in their terror pulled forth the
Zaporogean from
to
his
make
the czar laugh at his ridiculous figure.

czar's
But then the
arms began
move convul-
268
sively.
THE CHARLES MEN

His
face
fits.
of his dreaded
grew gray and he trembled in one He went toward the Zaporogean
and struck him in the face with clenched fist so that the blood streamed from his nose and mouth, and with such a hoarse and altered voice that it could no longer be recognized he hissed: "I have seen through you, liar, from the moment you came into the room. You are a Zaporogean, a renegade, who have hidden yourself in Swedish clothes. To the wheel with him, to the wheel!" All, even the drunken men, began to tremble and feel toward the doors, and in his terror one of the Boyars whispered: "Bring forward the woman! Shove her forward As soon as he gets to see pretty faces and woman's limbs, he grows quiet." They seized her, her bodice was cut over the bosom, and, softly wailing, she was supported forward step by step to the czar. It grew black around me, and I staggered backward out of the room. I remained standing on the street under the stars, and I heard the clamor grow muffled and the dwarfs begin to sing. Then I clenched my hands and remembered a promise on the field of battle to pray for a poor sinner's soul. But the more fervently I spoke with my God, the further went my thoughts, and my invo-
cation
became
a prayer for a yet greater sinner
who
with his
last faithful followers
wandered about on
the desolate steppes.
CAPTURED
The
ward
269
surgeon ceased with an anxious glance toward

to the catafalque. said she,
the coffin, and the lady-in-waiting followed him for-
"Amen!"
and the two again spread
the covering over the wax-pale (ûeen Dowager,
mother of the Charleses.
END OF PART
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Charles Men Part I: War and Glory

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LIBRARY

Digitized by the Internet Archive

2007 with funding from

by The American-Scandinavian Foundation

belief that greater familiarity with the chief literary

better understanding of Scandinavians,

and thus serve

sympathetic cooperation to good ends

VERNER VON HEIDENSTAM PART I

THE CHARLES MEN

VERNER VON HEIDENSTAM

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

Copyright, jg20, by The ijimerican-Scandinavian Foundation

The zMerrymount Tress

TO THE MEMORY OF THOSE HEROES

WHO WITH HONESTY

HAVE BATTLED GALLANTLY

AND GONE DOWN SMILING

REVERENTLY DEDICATED BY THE TRANSLATOR

The Green Corridor

Mazeppa and His Ambassador

Clean White Shirt

VERNER VON HEIDENSTAM

more than FOR of and

five years the

world has been

the clash of weapons, and

situation recalling that in

which Lucius Cary, Vis-

count Falkland, found himself during the English

Revolution and Civil War; when Clarendon relates

his friends, often, after a

deep silence and frequent sighs, would, with

and sad accent, ingeminate the word Peace^ Peace

and would passionately profess that the very agony

kingdom did and must endure, took

sleep from him, and

swers with a shudder: Infandum^ Regina^ jubes renovare dolorem.

the province of fiction to

Fiction frees from external real-

not only by taking us away to the lands of fan-

and the world of beautiful

visions, but by anisignifi-

mating the dead matter of events, by giving

cance and substance to things, by showing us the

of the Swedish empire, the desperate conright, the

of an inflexible ruler for what he believed to be

fated people, the ravages of

hunger which they en-

VERNER VON HEIDENSTAM

dured, their growing despair and infinite fortitude,

and eternal glory and compelling

picture that appears before us in simple, majestic

composed by the very

history of the world,

our hearts through terror and

pity, as Aristotle taught.

ponders the na-

and the philosophy of history may win

instruction from the epic which Swedish history

Swedish imagination together have formed about

mance of war, no rancorous and